One answer to the question of whether the Ukraine war is a quagmire
The Russo-Ukraine War might very well end up a quagmire, but neither Russia nor Ukraine is there yet…
The Russo-Ukraine War just turned one year old. That is not by any measure even a long war…
Absent a swift Russian victory — which by April of last year was no longer in the cards — there was never going to be a rapid conclusion to this war. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin imagines there are existential stakes involved. He believes, in true paranoiac Russian fashion, that the West is out to destroy Russia. For him, this war isn’t merely about subjugating Ukraine, although that is certainly part of his maximalist goals. Just as importantly, however, Putin desires to destroy the postwar system that the US helped implement after 1945 to maintain the global peace…
If Putin imagines existential stakes, for Ukraine the stakes are existential. After the horrors of the Holodomor and other, lesser attempts at erasing Ukrainian national identity, Ukrainians understand precisely what Russian domination means…
There are two endgames for the Russo-Ukraine War.
In the first, the West grows bored and impatient and denies Ukraine the weapons it needs to continue the fight. In that case, Ukraine is once again an oppressed subject of the Russian Empire, and Czar Vlad goes to work using his enhanced position to split NATO.
In the second, Ukraine maintains its territorial integrity — although perhaps only to its post-2014 extent rather than 1991 — and Russian losses are punishing enough to keep the bear caged for another 20 years. In that case, we’ll have bought, on the cheap, a generational handicapping of our number two geopolitical rival.
There is a third possibility but it’s no endgame. The West provides just enough assistance to keep Ukraine in the fight, but not enough to force Russia to agree to a peace.
Now that would be a quagmire.
I think the problem is that option three is the most likely. Almost from the start – once it became clear that Russia was not getting the quick victory it wanted and expected – option three seemed the most likely. That’s where the “quagmire” talk comes from.
Sad to say, I think option one is likely.
The drumbeat is already building. I think of Tucker Carlson, for instance, who rails almost daily against our support for Ukraine. I do not watch Carlson any longer; but since my wife admires him his broadcast is on almost nightly in our house. I am told that other “Conservatives” agree with Carlson.
I simply cannot understand how anyone in the civilized west would not rally to Ukraine under the circumstances. Ukraine’s own history of perceived or actual corruption is irrelevant. Some would no doubt say that I am delusional. But to me the parallels to the late 1930s are unmistakable. Putin cannot be allowed to succeed with this aggressive venture; because there is no assurance that it would be his last.
There’s a 4th option, that’s probably not as palatable yet is an option. A peace treaty that gives Russia parts of former Ukraine territory while leaving larger parts of Ukraine intact. I’m not going to argue the merits of this beyond it ends the war and prevents escalation (a 5th option), but lots of people believe this option was on the table and quashed by our government. I don’t know if it actually was, but it sure felt like a more viable option last year.
It is laughably and patently false that “Russia is our number two world adversary,” or whatever phrase was turned by the author of this piece. Russia is a third world country with a nuclear arsenal. Its economy is entirely energy and mineral export based; it has almost no manufacturing or technology assets. It was just another nuisance country in a world full of nuisance countries, including quite a few in our southern hemisphere. Why we are paying more attention and devoting more of our financial resources to the conflict in Eurasia than the ones going on literally on our southern border is explainable only on the basis that Joe Biden and his corrupt family are beholden to the ruling cabal in Kiev (who undoubtedly have the goods on Biden and have let it be known that they are willing to divulge them unless he plays their game). While the DC neocons busily occupy themselves propping up Zelensky and his pals, millions of foreigners from literally every nation on the face of the globe pour across the border with Mexico, bringing tons of drugs with them which are accountable for the untimely deaths of hundreds of thousands of American citizens, as well as the displacement of equally many, if not more American workers. I lived through the Cold War, when the USSR dominated not only Ukraine, but the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and every other country behind what was called “The Iron Curtain.” Yet not once do I recall America spilling its national treasure into any conflicts in that region, nor do I recall our country’s position in the world being adversely affected by the arrangement, but somehow we are now told that it is in our vital interests that Ukraine remain a sovereign entity? Why? What happened in the interim to require this new arrangement? All we have managed to do during these past months is drive Russia closer to China and Iran–our two ACTUALLY DANGEROUS national antagonists–as well as bankrupt our economy and those of other NATO nations while bringing us all closer to the brink of outright war. We should have never begun this stupid and misguided adventure and simply let the Russians and Ukrainians work out their differences without our involvement. If the European countries aren’t sufficiently concerned to take the initiative without American involvement, perhaps the situation is not as dire as portrayed. And please spare me the faux patriotism that drives the narrative, because it is largely coming from polluted sources that heretofore were most likely to espouse anti-American sentiments. Remember Hilary and her “highest form of patriotism”? Yeah, dissent was the thing when republicans were running the show, and then it was ratcheted up to eleven on the dial when Trump was elected. The same people who now demand that America support Ukraine in the name of “democracy” and “patriotism” were yelling and screaming in support of overthrow of the legitimately elected president. So, let’s not kid ourselves; the only thing the present regime is interested in is whatever puts dollars in their bank accounts, and the rest of America be damned.
Steven Green also linked to the cdrsalamander post about the Ukrainian war and the Estonian Ministry of Defense’s assessment of Russia’s (Vlad’s) long term strategic goals. That post and assessment was noted by Kate and other commenters here on Monday.
Russia population – 143.4 million.
Ukraine population – 43.79 million
Russia GDP – $1.779 trillion
Ukraine GDP – $200.1 billion
Russia nuclear weapons – 5,977 warheads
Ukraine nuclear weapons – 0 warheads
Amount of fighting going on in Russia – Essentially 0%
Amount of fighting going on in Ukraine – Essentially 100%
I’m no military genius, but I can’t see how Ukraine sustains a war effort under those conditions indefinitely, no matter how much military support it gets from the U.S.
“But to me the parallels to the late 1930s are unmistakable.”
Read some history. Not every bad guy is Hitler. The refusal to accept this absolutely cripples any attempt at reasonable analysis or discussion.
Mike
Steve longs for the good old days of ’49 (Berlin Wall), ’56 (Hungary crushed), ’68 (Czeckoslovakia invaded). Life was simpler before the USSR fell? Because, he gives not a rat’s whatever.
IIRC the Russians were trying to take over Greece and a few other places during those good old days, and succeeded in some, cough, Cuba. But no matter Steve.
Takes all kinds.
So what is the best-case scenario, that Zelensky wins and Putin falls, with a palace coup and regime change in Russia? Do we have any idea who or what is going to succeed Putin, and is there any reason to believe the new Tsar will be better than the old Tsar? We are spending a lot of our money and Ukrainian lives, not to mention risking Atomigeddon, on the off chance of swapping the devil we know for one we don’t know?
When the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956, few if any of even the nost militant cold warriors proposed giving military aid to the Hungarians. What changed?
In no scenario do the America people benefit by extending the conflict. And yet the Washington DC uniparty is wedded to the idea of perpetual war until Putin / Russia accepts defeat.
As with COVID lockdowns, the beatings will continue until moral improves.
Russia is Mexico with nukes.
Russian strongman Vladimir Putin imagines there are existential stakes involved. He believes, in true paranoiac Russian fashion, that the West is out to destroy Russia. For him, this war isn’t merely about subjugating Ukraine, although that is certainly part of his maximalist goals.
The US is out to destroy Putin and severely cripple Russia. Biden said so.
We extended NATO eastward in 1999, even though James Baker had agreed with Gorbachev that such a thing was unacceptable.
In the Bush the younger administration, we withdrew from the ABM treaty and signaled we were going to put anti-missle missles in Poland and Czech Republic. Then we attacked Iraq and deposed Hussein over the pre-text of WMD’s. We invaded a soverign/thuggish country with questionable pretext.
Then in 2008, we signaled that at some time Ukraine and Georgia would become candidates for NATO, over Russian objections.
All of these signals reinforced Russian fears the west/US intentions of finishing what we had started back in the 1980’s of destroying the Soviet Empire.
It may have all been entirely coincidental and innocent on our part, but shouldn’t someone in government given thought to how it would be perceived in the Kremlin?
It has been Russia’s position that Ukraine should remain a neutral country. What they continually voiced was objections to NATO military hardware and troops based on the Russian/Ukraine border.
Could this have been avoided? If the west had been more sympathetic to the Donbas region and Crimea at the time it was recognizing the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. Both those regions at the time signaled their desire to remain aligned with Russia. Crimea declared its independence from Ukraine in 1992, and the Donbas held a referendum seeking autonomy around the same time.
That may be old history, but it should make it easier to recognize that a realistic peace is going to require these areas to remain under Russian control. That’s probably more than envisioned in option 2.
What I’m reading is that those who favor arming Ukraine think it’s unlikely Ukraine can retake Crimea.
This is a two-minute segment of a larger conversation Judge Napolitano had with Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute about NATO expansion eastward:
Was Putin provoked by the West to invade Ukraine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X01bHipUSGw
The apologists come out from their bunkers with some new friends, and some others are just concerned.
One year into Vlad’s war of choice and little has been learned. Much has been ignored, too inconvenient; a leader willing to destroy a neighbor with conventional weapons and threaten the world with nuclear weapons, inconvenient. “Let’s try appeasement!”
Turtler will have a lot of writing to patiently explain things again, patience of Job.
Takes all kinds.
Not unrelated; but has anyone else heard the story the story that the air raid sirens going off while Biden was doing his “walkabout” with Zelensky was staged?
I’ve only seen this reported on Fox news. Everyone else seems to be silent on it.
It comes across as staged; no one being filmed seemed surprised, and that the US contacted the Russians to let them know Biden would be there so as to avoid an unintentional killing of the US president makes it seem even more likely that the Russians would not be shelling Kyiv while Biden was there.
That it is possibly staged doesn’t surprise as that is something the Democrats would do – they would consider a photo op to be more important that how the little people (who are somewhat shelled-shocked) feel. Sickening behavior.
In a great article Victor Davis Hanson speculates on what the end game of this mess will be. He likens it to the meat grinder of the Spanish Civil War of 1936 which was a prelude to WWII.
https://jewishworldreview.com/0223/hanson022323.php3
His opinion is that “the longer this preview war goes on, the surer the nightmarish main attraction.”
I’m afraid that I have to agree.
we have made it a blood feud, and hence it will be a quagmire, it’s a matter that goes back hundreds of years into the past, around the 17th century at least,
It would seem that those who have been shouting about China being the real threat better start apologizing for China too:
https://redstate.com/streiff/2023/02/23/us-threatens-to-release-intelligence-showing-china-considering-involvement-in-putins-war-in-ukraine-n707626
Shouldn’t have shot down that balloon, even over Montana? Who cares about Tiawan? What’s the word from the bunker? (how to sarc an entire paragraph)
I don’t believe that anyone in the Biden administration or NATO leadership really believes that Ukraine is going to defeat Russia on the battlefield. I think the goal is, and has always been, to have Ukraine put up enough resistance to weaken Russia and inhibit them from further adventures. Defense Secretary Austin has said as much.
The US taxpayer is quickly tiring of financing this war and opposition will only increase in the months ahead when our own economic situation worsens. At some point we will abandon Ukraine as we abandoned Afghanistan. Iraq, and Vietnam. We can then argue whether the hundreds of thousands of people killed, the hundreds of billions dollars spent and the catastrophic destruction of Ukraine was worth it.
Of all the nonsense spewed by the “kewl kids” about the war in Ukraine, the one that really strikes me as malignantly imbecilic is the proposition that supporting Ukraine is a distraction that prevents us from securing our southern border. In fact, the Biden administration is focused like a laser on enabling an invasion of a low skilled welfare dependant population of limited cognitive abilities to advance the Democrat party’s dream of a one party state. This project is and has always been implemented by deliberate policies large and small that are brazenly obvious. The whole business being camouflaged by the “poor old Joe tries his best but just doesn’t know what to do” canard.
“Welfarize them, naturalize them, and register them” is the name of this game. And it has nothing to do with Ukraine.
no, china is still our main enemy, 10 million lives lost testify to that, so they are happy drawing our weapons down, for the final fight, if the situation wasn’t so dire, there would be humor in it, when they handed the chinese the photos of the troop movements, which xi handed over to putin, with a mandarin version of a dry laugh,
who’s the real enemy
https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-nominates-wef-great-reset-figure-to-head-world-bank/
For what it’s worth, it wasn’t a Russian who orchestrated the Holomodor. It was a Georgian. A Bolshevik. Joe Stalin. It is not correct to equate the Russians with the Bolsheviks.
Are the Russians paranoid? Perhaps. If so they have historical reason to be so.
Why are so eager to poke the Bear with a sharp stick? So when the Bear bares his claws then we can say ‘L’animal est très méchant. Quand il est attaqué, il se défend.’
And not every attempt to destroy a country involves a military invasion. Witness the impact of fentanyl, a Chinese product, on the USA. It isn’t beyond reason that the Russian on the street sees our attempts to get them to mainstream things like ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ and the ‘Transgender’ lunacy as attempts to destroy Russia.
US out of Latin America! US out of Africa! US out of Europe! US out of Asia!
@MBunge
More or less agreed, with maybe some caveats on the percentage of fighting on national territory stuff, since the Ukrainians have made ranged attacks on Russian soil.
Honestly I can, and even while leavening out my optimism or wishful thinking. If you ran the above numbers for China and Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s you’d probably have very similar figures, with the big exception being population (and even then the gap is a lot smaller than many expect, with China having somewhere around 500,000,000 and the Japanese Empire having a bit above 100,000,000). Maybe raw GDP too though that is hard to assess and misleading given the balkanization in China.
Honestly we should always be careful with jumping too far, but even with that caveat there are quite a few striking parallels between Japan’s misadventures in China and Putin’s in Ukraine. But people probably do not want to hear about me comparing things like the massive Japanese naval advantage to the massive Russian naval advantage, the crude comparisons of Minsk I and II to the Taggu Truce, and so on.
The key thing you have to remember is that indefinitely does not mean infinitely. Moreover unless Russia decides to engage in full scale mobilization (which is going to be unpopular) it can only muster so much.
And while there’s the obvious issue that Japan ultimately lost in China because it engaged in a lot of foolish saber rattling and combat with stronger enemies like the Soviets and ultimately the Western Allies – and that’s sobering in its own right – the Japanese project to subjugate China had already fallen onto the shoals by about 1939-40, and indeed the decision to start picking fights with the West was a perverse (and ultimately suicidal) reaction to the failures and frustrations of subjugating China proper.
And the Russians have suffered similar issues, including the inability to build and maintain stable collaborationist troops and their governments, high casualties, logistical problems, and no good answers to material and financial support from the West (and others; for a good period from about 1937-1939 you had it where pretty much every other major power on the planet – from the US to Britain to France to Nazi Germany to the Soviets – were working together to support Chiang’s government).
Obviously history only rhymes. It does not repeat. And there are a whole lot of differences between the Chinese Land War then and the Ukrainian War Now. Though not all of those actually hurt the Ukrainian side (had Ukraine suffered the kind of violent factionalism the Chinese had, it probably wouldn’t have lasted this long).
Ultimately it is a game of endurance and to a large degree the Ukrainians “simply” have to avoid losing, much as various Afghan factions do.
Uh, I’m pretty sure, indeed I’d freaking WAGER that I’ve read far, far, far more history – especially about the 1930s – than most people here. Indeed, there’s a reason why I find Hitler to be a bit trite. The comparisons do exist and are very true (especially if you study the Anschluss as well as the idea of forcing a “fraternal nation” back into the Imperial Center), but as far as parallels go the example I’ve compared Putin’s conduct to more is that of the assorted Japanese Juntas, with the Soviets as a close parallel.
And it doesn’t take much reason to see why. While Putin’s regime lacks the extreme service-based factionalism that screwed Japan’s warlords over, it does have factionalism. And his approach to the war on Ukraine has a lot of parallels to that of Japan in China (complete with often-exaggerated and often-correct complaints about corruption or worse in Ukraine; the horrors of Nanjing and Unit 731 and Mao often obscure that Jiang’s KMT were NOT good guys except in comparison to the people they were fighting).
And I think many of the positions and principles we have apply there. Including the Stimson Doctrine which both sides of the aisle here in the US and most of the public has correctly applied to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and the Donbaschukuos.
I will agree with critics on one point: We have no business to be trying to unseat Putin. That is Russia’s business, not ours. His replacement might be even worse. We also should not be involved in any Ukrainian efforts which are not defensive; that is, the West should not invade Russia, either directly or through a Ukrainian proxy.
David:
So what? Stalin was the head of Russia – of the Soviet Union, of which Russia was the heart – for close to 30 years, and plenty of Russians were involved in the Holomodor.
Fentanyl directly affects the US. Drag queen story hour affects Russia not at all.
@bof
We have some ideas, but a lot depends on the situation in which he falls. Is it a palace coup by those close to him who decide they need to rebrand or change policy, sort of like how Gisevius interpreted Stauffenberg’s sect among the Bunker Plotters? Is it some kind of popular revolution? And if so is it replacing the regime with something like a democratic republic (even if a nationalist one)? or is it replacing them with some Neo-Communists or ultranationalists like Girkin?
The issue is there are a whole host of possibilities and it’d depend more on the specifics of how things play out.
Honestly, there’s probably a lot of reasons to believe that the new Tsar will be better than the old Tsar, or at least so humbled that the situation is better. Putin’s been scamming people for decades with the idea of “Better the Devil you Know” while playing rope-a-dope with pretty much every President in my lifetime with the idea that he could be appeased with detente, only to play Lucy with the Football at the worst possible moment for the US.
He cannot be trusted, as Mark Steyn pointed out. Moreover, he is sufficiently anti-American and anti-Western that the chances of him actually changing his stripes and alliances are so slim and would require such a drastic situation that they are hardly worth planning for.
But a humbled Russian government that has lost somewhere North of a fourth of its tank strength and well over a hundred thousand soldiers is going to have to choose its actions carefully, even if the person who replaces Putin is personally far, far worse from a US POV than Putin himself is. And there is something to be said for claiming a metaphorical scalp from a major geostrategic enemy like what happened to Khruschev after Cuba.
This is erroneous on multiple levels.
Firstly: We *DID* give military aid to the Hungarians, it was just very, very quiet and in the form of mostly small arms and limited anti-tank weapons. The reasons for that are pretty obvious but I’ll cover shortly (and honestly we probably got at least as much benefit out of them as they did out of us, given how it is how British intelligence secured a captured example of the T-54, probably one of the most influential tank designs in the history of ever and well ahead of most Western tank designs at the time). A better comparison would probably have been to Poland and the Poznan “Disturbance” just a bit earlier, which actually helped kick off the Hungarian Revolution.
Secondly: The situation was very different. While there are superficial similarities (somewhat violent uprisings mixed with inparty conflicts depose authoritarian goon and replace him with..something else) a cursory look at the map Hungary had no land connection to any NATO power. It was also all but surrounded by Warsaw Pact to an even greater degree than Ukraine was (which is saying something). And finally it wasn’t nearly as war ravaged as Hungary was, having gone through the horror shows of WWI, the Hungarian Revolutionary Wars, and WWII within living memory.
There was also the almost simultaneous and separate-but-popped-up-at-almost-the-same-time Suez Crisis, where the British, French, and Israelis tried to put Nasser in his place. Which seriously divided and distracted the West at the time even if they had wanted to intervene.
Thirdly: Soviet troops were already in and around Hungary throughout most of the drama of 1956, and the US and other Western powers had more or less agreed to stay out of Hungarian politics by the late 1940s. That is very different from the political case in Ukraine, where the Russian government formally acknowledged Ukraine’s borders and its right to choose any alliance it chose, and also had very few troops in country and did not have the same capacity to carry out a quick decapitation strike.
Simply put, there’s nowhere near any of the same reasons to be low key towards Ukraine as there was in Hungary. Practically, politically, ethically, militarily, strategically, economically, or in terms of WMD.
Dave:
That Adolph H. guy was from Austria not Germany. Care to run with your logic again about another bigger genocide?
No? ∞ Shocked
@David
Stalin was a Russified Georgian who habitually spoke Russian in private (and indeed it was noted as remarkable when he spoke Georgian to his older family or to Beria, mostly as a means of secrecy), and he did push violent Russification, not just in Ukraine either (just ask the Kazakhs).
And of course he could not have made anywhere near as much stir as he did without a whole host of willing or less than willing minions of every ethnicity.
I agree. But the fact remains that the Holodomors were as part of a wider push away from “Little Nationality” policies by Lenin and a very early Stalin Charimanship to favoring aggressive Russification, and they touched on or violently amplified many of the old policies of the Tsars. And the current Russian government has seen fit to whitewash, deny, or justify them, as shown by the endless propaganda about how Lenin supposedly “Created’ Ukraine (something that would have surprised him and all the Bolshevik militants that died fighting Ukrainian nationalists in 1917 and 1918 at places like Kyiv and Odessa).
Of course they do, but the same can apply to literally every single country in the area, often as a result of Russian actions at that. Care to talk about the Poles about Russian actions? Or the Balts?
Or how about the fine people of Istanbul-is-Constantinople, who can look back at literally a thousand years of raids, attacks, or the threats thereof by assorted Russian powers (starting with the proto-Russian Rus launching a Viking Fleet that ravaged the suburbs of the capital of the Roman Empire)?
History is a two way street, and attempts to appeal to the cult of Russian Victimization and Justified Russian Paranoia start to fall flat when the Kremlin shows itself to be incapable of dealing with its own historical baggage, guilty of enflaming many of the worst cases of it, and to have learned literally nothing from how the Poles and Ukrainians got over their own often INCREDIBLY bloody historical relations (which is one reason why you see the paranoid nonsense about Poland backstabbing Ukraine to partition it with Russia and reannex “the Kresy”).
We didn’t poke the bear with a sharp stick. The bear decided it was a good idea to storm into someone else’s house to try and tear up the place and mark its territory. The fact that many of those trying to make extravagant justifications
Are you seriously trying to hide utterly vile, victim-blaming nonsense behind a foreign language?
Sorry, but no.
Russia was not “attacked.” in this case.
And we KNOW this precisely because if it was attacked, the Russian Government would have been among the first to say so and would have been able to loudly talk about it in a consistent and logical fashion.
As opposed to incoherent gibberish and threadbare lies where it claimed the Spetznaz seizing Crimea were not theirs, only to admit that yes they were, or that Ukraine was somehow developing an anti-Slavic (!!!) Genetic Weapon that the Russian and Yanukovych Governments had apparently had no problems with up until 2022.
Because they really have absolutely no grounds with which they can legally justify their actions, so they have to keep using the Disinformation Hose and throw things at the wall in the hope something sticks to explain why they were justified in invading a country, causing the deaths of dozens of thousands of people, and trying to violate international law by partitioning it over *an EU Association Agreement.*
Even actual BEARS are rarely this freaking irrational. They are still violent wild predators and by no means Brother Bear Kumbaya stereotypes, but they’re also not THIS violent or impulsive. They will not pillage if they’ve had their fill and don’t see a way to store the surplus. They will retreat at least as often as they will attack if challenged. And even the most carnivorous and violent (hello Polar Bears) will USUALLY think twice before starting violent fights, ESPECIALLY with humans.
The Kremlin is a very naughty animal indeed, even in comparison to that.
Correct.
And also observe how Russia has manipulated the Transnistria issue to keep Moldova dysfunctional and divided.
Which I’d be more sympathetic to…. IF the “Russian on the street” had more than maybe five years in all of history in a position to dictate government policy.
And which particularly falls apart when you study what Putin has allowed Kadyrov to do not just to Chechnya but to wider Russian politics. Because apparently Putin is willing to allow an aggressive Narcoislamist theocracy to seize power in a “constituent Republic” of the Federation, persecute non-Sunni minorities (including the Russian Orthodox Church) violently, and sponsor terrorism. And even has purged those among his ranks who have spoken out about Kadyrov having such power.
I despise Western wokeness utterly and there is fair amount about Russian culture and history to admire, but the fact remains that if you’re the Russian on the street your life is more likely to be ruined or outright ended by the “Chechen Lobby” in Russian politics than by the likes of Buttigieg or Critical Gender Theorists.
AND WHAT WILL REPLACE IT THEN, GENIUS?!?!
OH, I KNOW.
THE FREAKING CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY- THE WORLD’S CURRENT HIGH SCORERS IN THE GAME OF MASS MURDER, AND ISLAMIST TERRORISM. BOTH OF WHOM PUTIN HAS GOTTEN INTO BED ALONGSIDE.
Please, Please, PLEASE tell me how the “US Getting out of Latin America” has helped either Latin America or the US. Ever check out Venezuela or Nicaragua lately?
Forgive me if I’d rather place America First and hope that we can restrain the globalist loons here in the US than submit to the tender mercies of people like Xi, the Ayatollah, and the man who treated Budapest, Astana, Minsk I, and Minsk II like so much toilet paper.
@Invisible Sun
Honestly I’m not sure. The importance of Ukraine to the global food market is a big change, and one of the most important differences between it and the examples I’ve used. But militarily having one of our major strategic and diplomatic enemies bleed itself and its reputation trying and failing to get a clear victory in Ukraine helps us in a lot of ways.
It’s also worth noting that in many ways this war has been going on since 2014, albeit on a lower burn.
Putin seems quite happy to sign on to the idea of a perpetual war until he can force the nations in the “Russian World” to bend the knee or cease to exist. It was his arrogance and bellicosity that ruined Minsk I and Minsk II more than any other factor. So why should I blame even the scumbags in the Uniparty solely for something Putin has been happy to foist on himself and his people?
It’s also worth noting that Putin rejected many other offers to wind up the war, including Zelenskyy’s proposal of a plebiscite in the Donbas. So trying to ignore either Ukrainian or Russian government agency to obsess over Biden and his handlers is ultimately missing a lot of the plot.
In the last two years china has taken nearly even token in latin america brazil was the big prize, they have gotten measurably strong they laugh at the regimes push of mind arson and echo it back to them in those 2021 capitulations in anchorage*
they lock up the stores of natural gas the rare earths saudi crude every resource worth considering
*the terms dictated after the boer rebellion
This mindgame where we pretend we are winning at what price exactly
@Kate
Honestly I’m not sure I agree even on that front. Putin has been shown to be the kind of treacherous, anti-Western scumbag who cannot fundamentally be negotiated with into some kind of mutually acceptable Win-Win. Mark Steyn and others were warning about this about 20 years ago.
I think the US has a great interest and business in seeing Putin deposed and replaced, as well as his cohorts. It is just a business that has limits, starting with practicality. Removing Putin might be good, but that doesn’t mean it is good enough to justify trying a thunder run to Moscow that would start WWIII and possible WMD Armageddon trying.
This is true, but I also think it is largely a moot factor. We may help decide the future but we can only see so far into it. And frankly the idea that we shouldn’t try to remove an utterly evil man and his regime because what replaces him MIGHT be worse is a bit backwards, similar to how those who cite Hitler to talk about WWI gloss over the mass murder, mass enslavement, genocide, ethnic cleansing, slave labor, and the like conducted by the Central Powers during and before WWI.
You have to fight for the world you have and that which might be. And that mights you have to fight the evil you face and try to prepare for those that’ll show up tomorrow.
Moreover, while we’re on the subject of Shicklegruber and Germany in WWII,
A: He didn’t immediately replace the bad guys of WWI. He replaced the significantly less bad bad guys who had turned the Weimar Republic into an undeclared, crypto-Imperial dictatorship with the “Cabinet of Barons”, who in turn replaced the genuine constitutionalist republican cabinets that had led Germany for nearly 20 years before that point.
B: One benefit of Germany’s defeat in WWI is that both started from much humbler positions than Wilhelm and co did in 1914.
Honestly I feel that reprisal strikes on Russian military targets such as Novorossiysk on the border to neutralize those places’ ability to threaten Ukraine and others is entirely justified. Likewise maybe contributing to the Oligarch Death Toll through supporting internal Russian opposition and providing the occasional bomb like what killed Dugin’s Daughter.
Doesn’t mean I want Ukrainians to try and re-enact Poland or France and go to Moscow, far from it. But I do think an active defense is called for, even if it extends to surgical strikes on Russian soil.
But that’s my stance, and people of good faith can disagree on that.
Now one cites prague because it took 500,000 troops to subdue it in 1968 a lesson general ivashov would have reminded putin and he sort of did
@miguel cervantes
We’re not the ones that made it a blood feud. One of the places where accusations of the UniParty and Foggy Bottom Foreign Policy Monoliths hit closest has been on our policy towards Putin’s Russia, and the honestly tiresome pattern of reach out to try and “engage” and “build bridges” only to snap back when inevitably slighted by someone who led us on.
In contrast the old Soviet Siloviki and other veterans of the “organs” have never forgotten the kind of power and prestige they once had and have bitterly nursed the grudge. The US’s policies towards Russia were hardly blameless, but there’s a VAST gulf between how the two sides viewed each other, and one that’s largely at the feet of the Kremlin.
Quick show of hands: How many people here have heard of the “Chicken Kiev” speech?
And that also underlines many of the issues with the Kremlin’s pathologies. Ukraine and Poland have mostly buried the old hatchets. Why not Moscow?
Sure, but they’re not so happily assessing their weapons systems and wondering exactly how good the stuff they bought or cribbed from Moscow is. And even before then they figured it would take several more years to surpass the US, as their public statements on strategy show.
Moreover, they can’t be happy with the US War Industry getting a sort of trial run in ramp up. They probably hoped the war would be over quickly.
Indeed.
There are a lot of real enemies, and the Great Reset goons domestically are some of fhem. But there’s a reason the Oath of Allegiance in the military talks of “All enemies, foreign and domestic.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but they have certainly made inroads. And while they’ve suffered humiliation and setback in some places like the Chilean Constitution referendum and the fall of Morales in Bolivia it has not been anywhere near as decisive as it needs to.
This also I think ties into our weakness when dealing with the “Bolvarians” and the likes of Castro’s Cuba.
Agreed.
They’re trying, but they are running into issues.
A fair point, and one reason why I liked Trump’s bluntness and willingness to call our enemies what they are.
Agreed. The fact that Prague was overwhelmingly not combat doesn’t help.
It still baffles me how anybody in the Kremlin thought their operations in Ukraine were a good idea. Even on a practical level.
I’m an elephant of a wargamer who never served, but I’m pretty sure I could have come up with at least a napkin plan better than a lot of the essentials behind the initial offensives in 2022.
Not because I think I’m particularly GOOD. But because “Not Driblets but Mass” and how many ways the Kremlin squandered many of its advantages.
Suppose, in some fashion, either directly or by shorting the Yukes on weapons, we cede Ukraine to Putin.
Is he guaranteed to stop there?
If not, the same questions arise.
And a further one, can we back up fast enough not to make Putin angry?
@Gregory Harper
Largely agreed, though I would also point that there are many different categories of defeat, even on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s struggled over the course of this war to establish durable occupation regimes and keep war production going, let alone depose the Ukrainian government as the original plan was. So the Ukrainians largely have to keep fighting and try to wear the Kremlin out.
Which I think they are quite capable of doing. It took about a decade for the USSR and its communist bloc puppets to crush the Ukrainian Insurgent Army limited to Galicia, and part of that was due to the UPA’s violent self-inflicted wounds. The going in Ukraine will be harder.
Honestly I think the opposition to funding the war is much less than the fact that it is a convenient scapegoat. On the grand scale of things our funding the Ukrainian War Effort has been quite small and of miniscule effect on the budget, especially comparison to things like entitlements.
However, it is at risk of being the Red Headed Stepchild. For the right it is a convenient way to needle Biden if nothing else, and also raises risks of escalation and other concerns. For the left it is subject to attacks from the pro-Putin elements of the Left and also serves as something to be thrown under the bus to protect more substantial and damaging investments like their domestic spending.
That gives it at risk.
The issue is that of those, Iraq actually held. It’s not the kind of utopia of freedom many hoped, but it retains the government that came to power as a result of our reconstructions in 2003.
The issue I see is that is a two player game, and the Kremlin has had to pay a far higher cost and has more direct responsibility for that.
@Richard Aubrey
Well said indeed. Encouraging bad behavior (like the post-Georgia Obama era “Reset”) leads to more bad behavior. It is why if we do have to cede Ukraine, it should be done only after as long and costly a resistance as possible, especially from a coldly cynical US POV.
And frankly Ukraine returning to a kind of Frozen Conflict cicra the war from 2016-2021 or Eritrea v Ethiopia or Georgia v. Russia/SO/Abkhazia is a suitable objective for US interests.
@charles
I did, and I fully agree it was staged. Politics is theater to some degree and this was far from the worst sin Biden and his ilk have done so it had a limited effect on me, but it shows how distasteful and exploitive these scum are.
M. Bunge mocks me: “read some history, not every bad guy is Hitler”.
Well, Mr Bunge, I have read a bit of history, so don’t trouble your mind on that account.
No, not every bad guy is Hitler. But Putin is demonstrably a bad guy who feels threatened by the peaceful nations on his border to the point of paranoia; and coincidentally fervently wishes to restore the glory of the Soviet Union. He has already engaged in extraordinarily ruthless aggression in pursuit of his fantasies. If that does not have a familiar ring, then you need to read a bit of history yourself.
The tenor of some of the comments is exactly why I said that I feared that Neo’s option one would prevail.
Not that it need be. While it is true that Russia dwarfs Ukraine in theoretical capability, the fact is that Putin has now blundered into a vulnerable situation. He has exposed Russia’s weakness, and his personal control is on increasingly perilous footing. If the Western democracies provide Ukraine with sufficient assets to sustain its resistance; and Russia is forced to negotiate an end that falls short of Putin’s goals, or simply withdraw, it sends a signal to every other potential aggressor. Without shedding a drop of American blood by the way.
Some have said that Russia is little more than a third world country now, and no threat to us. I do not think that the Baltic States, among others, share that sentiment. Besides, one can bet that China is watching. Maybe the same people are willing to write off Taiwan as well as Ukraine.
@Leland
Honestly I don’t think such a resolution could’ve been effectively quashed by the US Gov’t if both sides were interested. I just don’t think they were. That was largely what Minsk I or II would have amounted to and those collapsed due to neither side trusting the other.
And Zelenskyy went against the grain of much in Ukrainian public opinion by offering a vote to partition the Donbas between Ukraine and Russia, which Putin either barely responded to or didn’t at all.
So I figure that if such an option comes, it’ll only be after quite a lot longer, when both sides are even more exhausted and torn up. And there’s also the issue of how secure it is as an actual peace settlement rather than just a “Time out to catch a breather and reload.”
Does anybody in this administration make you feel confident sullivan blinken burns austin milley… be honest, why would you specially after afghanistan capitulation
@oldflyer
Well said.
Moreover, I’d add that not every bad guy has to be Hitler in order for them to be dangerous, violent bad guys incapable of being trusted beyond how far a gun barrel can be shoved into their face and who deserve to be taken down. I’ve talked a fair bit about the parallels I find between Putin’s actions on one hand and those of assorted Japanese juntas in the 1930s and 1940s.
Talking about whether Putin is closer to being Hitler, Stalin, or Tojo is kind of curious but ultimately a matter for trivia and philosophical consideration. He shares differences with all of them and similarities with all of them. But above all he is an extremely bad guy committed to an anti-American agenda who there is little hope for some kind of modus vivendi with for the immediate future. Which makes it important to humiliate him and limit the capabilities he has and any possible successor Russian government would have.
@miguel cervantes
Hell no.
Exactly.
Which is admittedly another reason why I prefer Putin and his army to be stuck in Ukraine while we try and deal with the aforementioned enemies within.
@Brian E
Part 1
Sorry for the delay, I was writing a response to a prior post of yours but was distracted. So I’ll copy it here and then respond to this post of yours.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/02/21/open-thread-2-21-23/#comment-2667873
@Brian E
Which I dispute for the reasons I mentioned. Putin has been quite prolific at threatening nuclear annihilation in either explicit or veiled terms, and if anything many people in his broad “constellation” are even more explicit and endemic. And while we might argue that the likes of Kadryov are not Putin nor in direct control of Russian policy (which is true) the level of censorship in the Russian Government and society means that they would not be able to make these kinds of threats so prolifically without Putin at least being willing to tolerate it.
Even if that were true, it is much less reassuring when you remember the Russian government declared the annexation of Ukrainian territory into Russia. So far they have not enforced this so rigorously as Kherson shows, but is is still very notably raising the temperature.
Well, either way it was quite bad. And why I have no interest in whitewashing Biden’s nonsense. I just argue that both sides have been responsible for creating this atmosphere of brinkmanship, and I’d argue Putin is significantly more responsible.
Agreed, and if there is one thing Biden does not deserve it is excessive kindness and generosity regarding his words and actions. And I say this even as someone who is more than prepared to accept that we should saber rattle back at Putin.
Absolutely, and that is a policy I oppose and will oppose for well into the forseeable future. I oppose this to the point where I would rather accept Ukraine’s defeat than American entry into the war, and it would take A LOT to make me reconsider that, especially given the primacy of the enemy within and the risks contingent with giving them yet more power (as a war would).
I have a number of issues that make me disagree with that.
Firstly: Accepting the Kremlin-sponsored long term partition and dismemberment of other nations in its ‘Near Abroad” such as Moldova and Georgia has hardly been conductive to lasting peace. We saw this after the Obama-Putin “Reset” where Clinton and Lavrov did. So I think pretty much all parties have long ago learned the right and justification to call an audible about accepting such terms as a way to move forward. Especially without something more.
Secondly: How would such acceptance provide more security to Ukraine and militate against the risk of further Russian aggression at some point in the future?
A good question, and one I’d largely leave it to the Ukrainians to decide. But I figure the point is VERY far into the future. There are many things that raise the bar for accepting pain high, and I think the sort of threat (real and imagined) to their country and lives that this invasion poises are some of that.
Thanks for the link. I’ll have to assess it later.
Bunge:
Even the Ukrainians don’t call Vlad “Adolph,” his nickname is “Putler.”
Are you shocked? They know a bit about history of German and Russian behaviour. Crack a book.
Victor Hanson makes good points, Chris B links to @6:38pm
…Putin still believes that his blunder will not have been a fatal one if he can still destroy much of Eastern Ukraine, institutionalize what he gained in 2014, fracture NATO, propagandize the war as an existential cause of saving Mother Russia from a corrupt West, and reconfigure a new alliance with China, Iran, North Korea, and perhaps Turkey and India.
As far as the United States goes, the Biden Administration sees America’s interest as largely defined by a proxy war to defang Russia. To paraphrase Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, America will pour limitless arms into Ukraine to so weaken Russia that it will have to stay within its current borders.
Washington blithely dismisses all of Putin’s existential threats as empty nuclear saber-rattling — on the Pentagon’s assurance that wounded, cornered, and growling tigers can always be assumed to remain predictably docile.
This will fracture NATO as time goes on– you already see some cracks. It’s the US and UK still doing the heavy lifting.
China no doubt is pleased to support Russia’s efforts to empty the US stockpiles and bank accounts.
Saving Russia from the decadent West is closer to the truth than propaganda, given our new interest in tutoring Hungary on the benefits of being woke.
I’m not sure leveling much of Eastern Ukraine will be a benefit, given this is the territory Russia will own at the end of the day and then have to rebuild it on their dime.
Most of the carnage is happening in the east, so western Ukraine’s willingness to destroy someone else’s property is certainly in alignment with US objectives– fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
I have a fundamental objection to funding someone else’s destruction. Were the US to take back its credit cards, the war would soon end. I suggest we find the off ramp sooner than later.
It seems to me we can become too clever, and find ourselves dragged into this mess. There is one obvious way for Ukraine to prevail– NATO/US to take over the air war. That would be escalation.
Interesting ideas, for which thanks.
In a more perfect world, they would be helpful and relevant.
I would suggest, however, that no matter how sensible, historically-based, and pertinent these ideas, analyses, descriptions and explanations might be, they are, in fact, ALL non-sequiturs.
This because I would suggest that the SIMPLEST solution to solving the ins and outs of the seemingly complex imbroglio in Ukraine is to look unflinchingly at the common denominator of EVERY SINGLE ONE of “Biden”‘s policies, viz., the destruction—if not actually physical, then spiritual, economic and influential—of the US itself and the Western world, more generally. (Some might refer to it as “Reset”…or even, “Great Reset”.)
Like ALL of “Biden”‘s policies, policies in large part echoed by Canada and Europe, even (suprisingly, or perhaps not), the UK—seemingly under the imprimatur of the “experts” and “visionaries” of Klaus Schwab’s WTF—the war/campaign/affair/bit of nastiness/unpleasantness (however one wishes to call it) in the Ukraine is just one of serious of policies/measures/strategies INTENDED, by “Biden”, to help “transform” the USA, and the larger West, into irrelevance. Or worse. (Putin, certainly, would like to help out in this seemingly non-intuitive endeavor as much as he can. So would several other countries, it would seem. China, Iran, etc… because the US has long been a bone in their respective craws. One begins to understand the “inconvenience” of DJT.)
And so the Ukraine “business” will continue TO WEAKEN AMERICA (by design, as they say) for as long as it takes.
And looking around at various constellations of power around the globe—EU, Russia, China, the US—it seems to me that Iran is in the middle of it all. To put it prosaically, “All roads lead to Teheran”. Or from it.
The recipient of aid from and assistance of all types from Russia, from China, from the EU and also—how ’bout that!—from “Biden”, Teheran is being groomed to “assist” in the “transformation” of the Middle East, much as the “transformation” of the West is the pet project of Iran’s partners in—well, let’s call it “nuclear development for there-should-be-no-doubt-about-it peaceful purposes.d
The “beauty” of this seemingly off-the-wall view of “complex” issues is…its simplicity…and its consistency, at least so it seems to me, not that I’m the sharpest tool in the analytic toolbox. But there is, one might admit, a certain symmetry to the nightmare it purports to explicate.
After all, hasn’t “Biden” been calling for “UNITY” from the very get-go?
Oh, and also “Transformation”….
Oops. “…one of serious of…” should be “…one of a series of…”
– – – – – – –
I guess the question that we really should be asking is:
Why would “Biden”, whose policies in EVERY OTHER REALM intentionally—and seriously—weaken, cripple actually, the country “he” purportedly “leads”, be expected to “forge” a policy in Ukraine that is in America’s best interests????
Put another way, “Biden” has decided that America’s best interests are not the world’s best interests, run counter to them in fact. And “Biden” has decided which interest take priorith.
@Brian E
Part 2
And now to reply to your new comment.
As a result of Putin’s actions and policies. Prior to this Biden was quite dovish on Russia. And bluntly, given how Putin has acted the US *SHOULD* be out to destroy Putin and severely cripple Russia. He is far from the morally worst or most dangerous of our enemies, but he is sufficiently dangerous, committedly hostile, and untrustworthy that getting him off the board is the rational action, assuming it can be done at an acceptable risk.
“We” were just one of the many, Many different parties privy to that issue, and in fact to a large degree the post-Pact nations were prompted to steamroll in lines to gain NATO membership to the bafflement of many of the “Old NATO” members, including the HW Bush government. But Baker and Gorbachev had accepted that those nations had a right to voice their stances and be heard. And moreover, the events in Yugoslavia and former Soviet Space did little to encourage nations to avoid it, especially after the examples of Moldova and the Austrian War Scare indicated neutrality would not necessarily guarantee security.
Which is a fair point, but was largely in response to 9/11 and negotiations with Poland and Czechia. Especially since the missile defenses would most likely have been impotent against Russia’s arsenal but would be useful against Iran and Iraq, hardly a trivial matter given the experiences of the Gulf Wars. Russia certainly had causes to take issue with those, especially the ABM Treaty withdrawal, but it was hardly the main target.
WMDs were just one of the several pretexts we used, albeit the one we chose to emphasize (in my opinion unwisely) to try and “sell” the war to a wider audience. The actual list of pretexts went far further, and probably the most important one was the citations regarding terrorist sponsorship by Saddam, in particular regarding Al Qaeda. It’s well worth re-reading the actual document, I think.
https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ243/PLAW-107publ243.pdf
This I think also explains the timing, given how it came after 9/11 and the Afghan War. Most of the previous issues were still around and had been boiling to some degree or another for years if not decades, but it was the decision by Saddam to escalate outreach to AQ and the Taliban after 9/11 that was almost certainly the prompt for this particular rush to get it.
Several pretexts.
And while some of them may have been questionable (and the evidence used for a lot of them even more questionable) we were brutally open about it and spent months airing them and what evidence we had.
Moreover, many of the charges were *Vindicated* in whole or in part. I still know some Kurdish-Americans who risked their lives digging up chemical weapons Saddam had illegally hidden. And as for the most pressing matter of his ties to AQ, there’s a reason why even the Left twists itself in pretzels to clarify “No direct connection”, precisely because it is painfully obvious and frankly indisputable on a factual level that there was an indirect connection.
Especially given the yeoman’s work done by authorities in places like the Philippines detailing how Saddam sent knowledge and blood money to AQ groups like Abu Sayyaf that killed very real people.
Indeed, I find the failure to push back against the “Bush Lied People Died” nonsense to be one of the great failures of the “War on Terror” and especially in Iraq, and it makes Dubya a petty man given the blood libel peddled by the likes of Obama and his mute response in comparison to the response to Trump for far less.
Which only Georgia had been actively seeking (and for obvious reasons, given the maintenance of separatist states and even Russian garrisons on its internationally recognized soil over Georgian objections, especially since said regimes had engaged in ethnic cleansing). And I can’t blame the Georgians for that.
However maintaining Ukraine’s neutrality would have been fairly easy, and indeed it was successfully done for years. Especially since Ukraine was one of the post-Soviet states that openly EMBRACED neutrality and even open ties with Russia in contrast to the stampede to NATO.
The Kremlin should have been overjoyed at Ukraine’s actions and moved heaven and earth to build a consensus in Ukrainian politics to support that, and to encourage other nations to follow Ukraine’s example. Instead it fought petty decades long tariff wars on trade with Ukraine and even much more solid allies/clients like Lukashenko in Belarus, which helped hurt both sides and undermined the support base for pro-Kremlin politics in Eastern and Southern Ukraine (because it turns out that Russophine Ethnic Russian miners in the Donbas have to eat too).
The US was looking forward to expand its influence and networks in Europe, but it was seeking to do so with the carrot far more than the stick, and largely by capitalizing off of alienation from Putin’s heavy handedness.
And Russian actions since 1992 had reinforced fears among the West and especially the nations in the “Near Abroad” that Moscow still intended to rule heavy handedly over those it deemed to have a right to dominate. That it would be an untrustworthy and fickle ally and terrifying, brutal enemy, as the Armenians are learning in earnest.
That points to a deeper problem with Russian statecraft and political culture, and the fact that it actively undermined what gains it had made shows it.
And the answer is we did. And indeed we regularly prioritized the Kremlin’s feelings over those of our allies and neutrals. And we repeatedly got shafted as a result because Putin kept playing Lucy with the Football. While in contrast the US governments – for all of their MANY sins, flaws, and variable compositions and policies – handled real and perceived setbacks in the region with far more tact and sensitivity, like with the Kremlin-supported Kyrgyz populist uprising against the dictatorial “President” Bakiyev, which is the closest situation to “Euromaidan but with changed sides” as there was in the region, and one where the US’s policy of “Making nice and NOT sending in Little Green Men to violently seize the Manas “Air Transit Center” paid off in spades.
It was ALSO Russia’s position and that of the international community that regardless of what a given nation’s government wishes should happen, that Ukraine and every other nation had the right to territorial integrity, independence, freedom from foreign hegemony, and the right to decide its diplomatic orientation. As Putin had his diplomatic stooges agree to at the Astana Commemorative Declaration in 2012.
Which reinforced the importance of tact and the use of using seduction rather than coercion, of trying to make Ukrainian political opinion SEEK closer ties with Russia. Which Russian policy kind of sucked at doing.
While Estonia and others complaints about Russian hardware and “exercises” on the border, as well as more substantial issues like limited Russian violations of their borders.
https://bnn-news.com/state-auditor-on-violations-on-latvian-russian-border-it-is-a-big-example-of-arbitrariness-209203
The public generally hasn’t heard of this because it was background noise that was generally ironed out diplomatically, as it should have been. Because co-existence means dealing with some nonsense from your neighbor(s) and that was a two-way street.
Sure, but not easily.
And any real discussion of avoiding it would have to discuss the core problem. The extremely heavy handed, often outright violent approach the Kremlin has taken to the nations in its “Near Abroad” and how this alienates people.
Both regions voted majorly for independence from the USSR in concert with the Ukrainian SR. They clearly wanted to retain some ties and affinity with Russia, but A: that was generally within the context of an independent Ukraine, and B: It was MUCH MUCH more prevalent in Crimea than the Donbas, since there was an actual separatist movement and significant legislative politics in favor of separatism in Crimea unlike in the Donbas.
Not really. It declared a Republic of Crimea as a constituent part of Ukraine issued a couple constitutional drafts which tried to straddle the line between Moscow and Kyiv and led to a lengthy legislative dog fight over Crimea’s autonomy and laws. This COULD have actually spiraled into something big, especially during 1994-1995 when Meshkov was openly reorienting Crimea’s laws with Russia’s, but didn’t.
In part because Moscow gave the thumbs down.
Which brings me to another point.
And which generally went nowhere largely because even in a generally very pro-Russian Donbas actual autonomy was viewed as questionable. ESPECIALLY due to the increasing power of Donbas political and cultural figures within the context of a wider Ukrainian polity, especially since Kuchma heavily cultivated them.
Which brings us to an important point.
You talk about whether this could have been avoided if the *US* Had showed more sympathy to Crimea and the Donbas, but overlook the question of if the Russian Government showed more sympathy to them. Because 1992-1995 was generally the time where if it was going to make a play to have Crimea and the Donbas be autonomous or even annexed into it, that was the time. But it didn’t, as Budapest shows, and indeed its decision to turn them down helped crush the rather serious Crimean separatist movement and stifled what was left of the move for Donbas autonomy.
Why?
Well, several times.
But starting with Nukes and going onto military equipment.
Budapest 1994 outlined that Russia would inherit all the Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil and these would be transferred, and in exchange it and the other signatories accepted Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders. THIS was the time to call an audible about the status of the Donbas and Crimea.
But Russia’s government by and large did not.
Nor did Putin’s government upon taking over. At least until it was convenient.
How much sympathy did the separatists of the Donbas and Crimea warrant? Well, apparently more than one government in Moscow concluded the answer was “Not enough to talk about Budapest.”
Because there WAS A decent chance Russia could have annexed the Donbas and/or Crimea, or at least had them have more expansive autonomy. But that would have involved making concessions in other things. How many? I do not know.
A Ukraine with an independent nuclear arsenal and deterrence? Perhaps unlikely due to the cost of those, but is it really out of the realms of possibility?
So the Kremlin signed. It indicated where its interests lay, and that ultimately the pro-Russian separatists and “autonomists” in the Crimea and Donbas were not of such interest. And that remained so, as shown by the lack of discussion about revising it.
Did Putin ever broach the topic of discussing a deal with the Ukrainian Government? A bilateral revision of Budapest in which Ukraine would give up territory and title claim to parts or all of the Donbas and/or Crimea in exchange for Russian concessions, such as perhaps the transfer of nuclear weapons or other assets?
Did it even Cross his Mind?
We don’t know. Indeed, we might never know. But assessing Putin’s actions also makes the Kremlin’s stance in a hell of a context. It points to bad faith and double dipping, of trying to have one’s cake and eat it too.
Honestly, I reject this stance categorically, at least as is. And because recognition that places like Abkhazia, Transnistria, and South Ossetia remain under Russian control has done remarkably little to pave the way for a peace, realistic or not. Where is the good will or trust? What do the other parties get?
Agreed, though I think it is worth noting it is more likely than many expect. Especially given the fragile nature of naval power in the Black Sea during the missile age.
Thanks for the link Brian, but as far as the piece goes it was not impressive.
I already addressed the “started by moving east of what Baker and HW Bush wanted” thing. That was old and dead years ago and was accepted as such (however grudgingly) by Russian signing of international law such as the Astana Accords.
Moreover, as I pointed out, Baker and Bush’s discussions were not legally binding and were broadly recognized as such by their counterparts.
B: I’ve already discussed the “Euromaidan was a Coup” thing before and we discussed it. But what really galls me is the double standard, and more of the “Have your Cake and Eat it too.”
The speaker on the left wants to describe Yanukovych as a “popularly elected” President of Ukraine (while ignoring his many scandals and crimes, such as vote rigging during 2002-2005)? Ok, fair enough. That’s literally true. But they’re “conveniently” ignoring the aforementioned role of the Verkovna Rada, the Ukrainian Legislature, which was ALSO popularly elected (indeed, many of its deputies were popularly elected at the same time as Yanukovych).
Kind of a double standard, no?
Especially since the Rada reflected a much wider spread of Ukrainian public opinion (and indeed one that Yanukovych’s coalition held the upper hand in at the time).
And finally,
C: If Putin truly thought it was a coup that justified military response, why not raise the point rather than peddling laughably poor lies about Little Green Spetznaz he totally had no clue about the origins of? I’m pretty sure Yanukovych would have been persuadable to act as a masthead.
But that would have appeared pretty dubious, especially since it would raise the question of how the democratically elected parliament in a parliamentary system (where for better or worse the legislature is used to having much broader legal discretion than in others) was a “coup.” And how attempts to argue about the finer points of the law (Which would be a legitimate argument) would run into the opposition doing the same through things like discussing the Dictatorship Laws and Yanukovych’s support of unconstitutional torture and detention of real and alleged dissidents and the dissemination of things like anti-Jewish propaganda through government outlets.
Simply put, Putin and Yanukovych were unlikely to get much support for doing this, especially in public. And Putin was forced to acknowledge that Yanukovych was probably a net liability to his popularity in the East and South. So Putin did what he usually did and started violent skullduggery.
It also overlooks the causes of Euromaidan and Ukrainian discontent with the actions Putin had encouraged Yanukovych in taking, which is a nice way to avoid dealing with the ratifications of Russian foreign policy in the near abroad if we want to write off Euromaidan as simply a coup. Even if we do accept it were a coup (and I frankly don’t but I accept good people can disagree) it was hardly a case of Seal Team Six or the CIA going into Kyiv in the middle of the night and surgically decapitating the Yanukovych cabinet’s ability to govern through open, undisguised military force.
The fact that so many of Yanukovych’s allies in the legislature and judiciary either outright turned on him or stepped back into neutrality says something. And I find the argument that this was primarily driven by intimidations or beatings to be quite unconvincing given our ability to track Ukrainian politicians in the hours and days after.
In the past I withheld judgement of Napolitano being a Kremlin stooge or useful idiot, but I will say this kind of rhetoric definitely pushes my needle in that direction.
I agree with O’Hanlon’s stance far more, and even on some of the issues of NATO expansion without getting Russia onboard. The bigger issue I have with the idea of a separate alliance or security apparatus is: would this REALLY assuage Russian worries or hostility? Or would it just be kicking the can down the road into a new and somewhat different shaped bin? Especially since pretty much all the developments mentioned here came after the Transnistrian War and the first “flowering” of sectarian bloodshed in Georgia.
The US and NATO and the nations in Russia’s “Near Abroad” that joined NATO certainly did things to rub Russia the wrong way, and I’ll happily accept that some of those actions were unjustified, impolitic, or crass. But at the same time, where is the other side of the story?
It’s also worth noting that Gorbachev teased about the Soviet Union entering NATO and Putin outright expressed desire to join. But Putin withdrew when he was informed he could not skip to the head of the line and would have to comply with the standards of every other NATO member and the process for being it. Which I think goes back to some of the issues. The Kremlin is not exactly a surfeit of sympathy or empathy for its neighbors, and I think that more than anything helped get it to the situation it is now.
Ah, but optics (dear boy). Optics!
@Brian E
Sorry, I did not notice this new comment of yours while writing a lot.
Part 3
Agreed to some degree, but I think it will mend some of the cracks even if it opens up more of them. It forced the Germans to at least give more lip service to opposing Russian influence for instance.
Broadly agreed, though up to a point. China has other fish to fry and it has already shown indications it wants to limit its involvement (as we do).
I disagree, as would PIS in Poland and others. I have very little love for the depravity and decadence in the West, and Barry M is quite perceptive at pointing it out. But Putin has very little issue with “decadence” per se, or even homosexuality or transgender nonsense (the latter of which is showing up in wedge issues not just in traditionally more “woke” and “progressive” Moscow and St. Petersburg but also the Muslim areas, since Muslims – even violent Islamists – actually tend to be quite open to transgenderism, certainly more so than homosexuality. Maybe because it often involves genital mutilation?).
There is a lot to dislike in the West today, and much to admire in Russia. But I don’t see how this really helps save Russia from the decadent West, especially by violently invading one of the least woke nations in Europe and violently threatening many of the others, especially Poland.
Benefit? Maybe yes or maybe no. But Putin made a decision to do it fairly early, as shown by the big siege battles of 2014-2016 and again in the first months of 2022 (especially the great encirclement on the Sea of Azov). I also think at least part of it has less to do with what he can get out of the region materially or economically so much as what he can get out of it politically.
And why at least one hardline Ukrainian Loyalist has advocated that losing the Donbas and Crimea would be something to CELEBRATE.
https://archive.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/alexander-motyl-its-time-for-ukraine-to-let-the-donbas-go.html
The issue is that “Western Ukraine” is a lot further East than many people realize. Kharkhiv had a moment where it could conceivably have gone one way or the other during the crisis moments of 2014-2015, and if the Russian military takes it I’m sure at least some collaborators would pop up, but for now it remains a pretty stalwart bastion of the Ukrainian Loyalist cause and has a lot of war hawks.
I might, but I think it is ultimately well beyond the US’s say to really decide, and so we might as well do it.
I cannot possibly agree. It’s POSSIBLE maybe, but far from certain or even likely.
The war was already about a decade old when it ramped up in early 2022, and while the US was funding and supplying the Ukrainians it was nothing like on the level. Likewise Georgia, which remains in a frozen conflict about as old as I am.
And again, it took something like 20 years for the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in its foxholes and murder pits in Galicia to get dug out, and they had much fewer resources, nowhere near the level of Western support (Though they did have a fair bit), and combined operations by the post-WWII Soviet military and security services as well as all their neighboring client states.
This war will likely last for quite some time. Not necessarily in the current ultra hot pitched state, but probably fair.
The big issue I see is finding an off ramp that is acceptable.
Agreed, and I also think Budapest 1994 is a classic example of being too clever by half.
I agree it would be escalation but I think there is more. For starters, the air war is fairly static at present since neither side really has the men, resources, or material to effectively strike the other in an AA Dense area. So helping the Ukrainians replenish AA stocks while helping outfit them with new planes would likely be a major blow. That might also be an escalation, but it is less of one than the West openly entering an air war with Russia.
How much escalation is there before the brink? I don’t know. But I do think that a confident Russian government is more likely to find where the brink is than a chastened one.
@Barry Meislin
A fair point, and why in spite of being known as one of the local Ukrainian Hawks I have always viewed our current problems as more pressing, the Ukrainian war as secondary, and that giving up Ukraine in exchange for getting our country back would be acceptable (at least for us). I just sympathize with Richard Engler in believing that wouldn’t really help so much.
I have to call an audible here, in that I don’t think that is exactly true regarding the “imbroglio in Ukraine”, even if it is for Biden and his puppeters’ interest. Because this mess started well before Biden’s term in 2014 and ran through the end of Obama and then all of Trump. This has its own dynamics that go back years if not decades or centuries, and I think that while the Great Reset and the globalist nonsense there are interfacing with it in terrifying and concerning ways, they didn’t exactly “cause” it.
Well said, and why I agree. I fear the WEF and the likes of AOC far more than I do Putin. Perhaps even more than I fear Xi. It’s not much good to fight for your freedom and those of others in a trench outside Bakhmut when you can be stripped of it based on Ray Epps the Agent Provocateur in the city Washington Built.
Fair, though I think that is really not a good way to do it. Especially since it is humiliating Putin the boogeyman.
I wouldn’t say all roads lead to or from Tehran, but that you can make a quick transit from the road to a boat or train and get there. And by intention. The Mullahcracy in Iran has outright apocalyptical ambitions and wants to usher in the new, “Divine” Twelver Shiite Ummah. And it will play however it fits.
Well said, and this also touches in how much of the grandstanding and “being tuff” on Russia is Kayfabe. And how the Mullahcracy is a more fervent enemy of ours than even Putin.
Agreed.
Indeed. He is a useful fool, and one that sold whatever is left of his soul for power long ago.
Probably because it is a useful tool to try and scapegoat us as Putin bots, as well as because he knows if he is too gun-shy people like me will humiliate them over how tough on Russia Trump was. Ukraine sucks a lot of the air out of the room when it comes up (and we are guilty of that too, given my meme walls of text on it), but I don’t think it is central to the works of Biden’s masters.
Agreed, but I also think while he welcomed the ongoing war in Ukraine and its escalation, he was only so interested in it. Especially since it serve as salutory counter-examples for many of his agenda pieces.
Like say… the rights of an armed populace to self-defense.
“Well, Mr Bunge, I have read a bit of history, so don’t trouble your mind on that account.”
How about the history between 1949 and 1991? You know, when the U.S. had to contend with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union? That’s the bizarre thing about this. People wanting to play “The Great Game” with Ukraine is just a replay of the various delusions and obsessions with Iraq and the Middle East in the 2000s. Unfortunate, but par for the course.
But we spent 50 years vacillating between concerned and outright fearful of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. It was one of the fundamental things which influenced countless aspects of American policy and thinking. And now our attitude toward a nuclear-armed Russia is “Fuck ’em. What are they gonna do?”
Oh, and another bit of history that needs to be revisited is a little thing called “The Monroe Doctrine.” The U.S. claimed an entire half of the planet but Russia shouldn’t expect to have any sway over Ukraine?
Mike
Brain E:
One little sentance says so much. locked into the Russian spin:
“Most of the carnage is happening iyn n the east, so western Ukraine’s willingness to destroy someone else’s property is certainly in alignment with US objectives– fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.”
Any other feed from Vlad, Brain E?
Ukraine had no use for the industrial and heavy industries in the East? For they are all stupid farmers, kulaks too, or Nazis?
IIRC Vlad utterly destroyed Mariupol (Donbas Eastern Ukraine) and has no intention of rebuilding it. Inconvenient. His tactics seem to rely on utter destruction, like in the Second Chechyn War and how they won in Grozny.
Your man, Brain E.
Turtler,
Here is an analysis of why sending a few fighters might help, but won’t make a substantial difference. The analysis leads to the Swedish Gripen, which was designed for combat similar to what Ukraine is facing.
Dr. Justin Bunk explains how a complex interaction between multiple elements is necessary for the west to gain air dominance and why its not going to happen over Ukraine.
Without air superiority, Ukraine– or Russia for that matter since neither has been able to prevail in the air produces the sort of meatgrinder artillery war we’re seeing.
Assuming Ukraine is in a position to counter-attack in the late spring/summer when the new shiny weapons arrive, they will likely find themselves in a similar grind to what Russia is experiencing now.
This is what I was referring to about US taking over the air war. We are already providing intelligence support analyzing targets and even providing coordinates for targets.
Which NATO Fighter is Best for Ukraine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5pr0MUGn9k
Bunge:
He calls back to the Monroe Doctrine, quite the refuge of a scoundrel; so taken with defending a tyrant overseas that he has to attack his own country. Life in a bunker does strange things to a person.
Don’t become a Bunge.
@MBunge
I’ve read quite a lot about it. Heck, read, watched, wargamed, studied, argued….
I just rambled quite a lot above why the US response to Hungary in 1956 was far more muted compared to this.
Literally How.
How? Care to provide examples or specifics to give meat to your accusation?
You don’t seem to make much in the way of coherent arguments or points, especially not to substantiate claims like that. It’s like the “Just asking questions” meme/falsehood (since while there ARE some that are just asking questions, it rarely is like that).And yes, I have plenty of issues with the track records regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, and I freely admit I was wrong about many points on them, and can argue how.
I can also argue where we got it right. And I don’t have to tie myself into knots to argue the Filipinos were wrong when they pointed out matters like the extensive comms between representatives of Saddam’s government and representatives of Al Qaeda vassal groups like Abu Sayyaf that the Filipinos argued (I’d say correctly) did things like cost the lives of several of their kin in terrorist attacks through the Archipelago. Ditto why I don’t have to pretend that Saddam illegally keeping WMD in the form of chemical artillery shells is ok because he “forgot” about it.
Nice strawman.
Unfortunately, you’re “conveniently” smoothing out a few things.
Firstly: That one of the decisive moments of the Cold War and indeed the forebearer (for better and for worse) of the kind of “Fuck ’em, what are they goanna do?” was the Reagan Revolution, openly shucking decades of Foggy Bottom Foreign Policy by trying to upend the balance of forces in a controlled way, so that the US would spend less time living in existential fear of the a nuclear armed, massively militarized Soviet Union than the Soviet Union would spend living in fear of us.
Which worked. Arguably better than intended in some cases such as in Able Archer. And while you might be able to argue (as many on the left did at the time) that this was reckless, warmongering, or courting apocalypse it was also a crucial economic, political, military, and PSYCHOLOGICAL breakthrough that helped end the Cold War on our terms.
Secondly, that most of those American policymakers and thinkers who were not so hawkish as Reagan recognized the consequences of allowing the Kremlin to push us around too blatantly. The primary reason Kennan is as well known as he is is because he pointed this out in his Long Telegram, and even JFK (who I as a rule do not have a great opinion of) pointed this out in the speech he never had a chance to give.
https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/dallas-tx-trade-mart-undelivered-19631122
I have plenty of issues with JFK and particularly how the “Best and Brightest” planned Vietnam and proceeded to mismanage it, but are you really going to argue that the antidote to this is avoiding any possible confrontation with a nuclear-armed bully?
Please, PLEASE try to make a point about the Monroe Doctrine to me.
Because I’ve been looking forward to talking about it, the Good Neighbor Doctrine, and so forth.
Firstly: The Monroe Doctrine, as originally articulated, underlined that the US would oppose attempts to reconquer independent nations in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, it was first articulated when the US had almost no interest or power in conquering them itself.
Secondly: While a lot of people like trying to draw *FALSE* equivalences (and that IS what they fundamentally are, FALSE equivalences) between the Monroe Doctrine and its assorted iterations and the Kremlin’s stated claims of a “Russian World”, and particularly “Olney’s 20 inch Gun” about how the US Is ‘practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines this interpretation…”
A: The US rarely denied that these countries DID NOT have a right to be at least nominally independent. Indeed, Olney’s infamous and arrogant “Gun” was meant to warn the British off from imperial misadventures in Venezuela. Which is why for all of the US’s many misdeeds, it rarely outright annexed territory in the Western Hemisphere by force. Indeed I’d probably be lucky to find half a dozen such cases.
This is in sharp contrast to the Kremlin denying Ukraine’s right to exist and pursuing that through military force.
B: The Monroe Doctrine went through a hell of a lot of changes between James Monroe and now, and in particular the US took SEVERAL steps back due to the Good Neighbor policy, which saw fewer Marine Landings and more coups and patronage precisely because the US was fed up with colonial policing in places like Hispaniola.
Which is something that tends to get “conveniently” missed by those trying to claim Monroe is equivalent to what the Kremlin’s doing.
C: Even during the time the US was quite willing to suffer those it disagreed with returning to civil life. Steino Vincent (ever heard of him?) got into power in Haiti by condemning the US occupation and then being elected under the sights of the US troops. Sandino reentered politics after a truce with the Nicaraguan Government and the US, only to get murdered years later by his old enemy and our client Somozoa.
Please compare this to the “disappearances” going on in Crimea.
The US claimed influence over the independent nations in the Western Hemisphere. It did not claim these nations were artificial or could be annexed at its will. Indeed, the hardline fillibusters and annexationists were heavily persecuted by the US Government.
The legal and logical equivalent to people like Girkin are not Teddy Roosevelt or Theodore Roosevelt or James Monroe. They’re people like the “man of destiny” William Walker who repeatedly got denounced and trialed for his actions (admittedly often ineffectually). Which is still a hell of a lot more than them “curiously” winding up with Kremlin’exclusive equipment.
So “Mike” – I can call you Mike, right?
When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
Posts like this are not impressive. At best they are unconvincing. At worst they are both unspeakably arrogant and in bad faith.
And don’t pretend that hasn’t been a problem for you that’s gotten you on justifiably thin ice with our host before.
You’re not uniquely enlightened or knowledgeable about the nature of man, history, and the world. You sure as hell are not the only person who has studied the 1930s, the Cold War from 1949-1991, the Monroe Doctrine, or “History” as a whole.
Not even on these forums. So Stop pretending you are.
You are not God’s Best Scholar on the Monroe Doctrine.
You are not God’s Best Scholar on the history of the Cold War.
Start putting more effort into responding to the claims of others than caricaturing them.
And maybe you’ll be able to convince them and sway them closer to your vision.
Because otherwise, you might as well quit and go back to working on that shelter of yours.
Brain E:
Shiny new weapons = no Russian logistics. No Russian logistics – see Kherson and the Russian feinting. No Kerch Straights Bridge = Crimea feinting. No Russian NCOs, no Russian officers, all dead in front of Ukrainian trenches because both the Russian Army and Ukrainian Army don’t really care how many Russian soldiers die.
Your man Vlad.
@Brian E
I agree, sending a few fighters won’t help. Fighters – even modern ones- aren’t magical wonder weapons capable of achieving video game kill to death ratios, especially not in a contested airspace like Ukraine.
Agreed, which is why I do think a good frame of reference would be WWI or the Ethiopian-Eritrean Wars.
For better or worse though I do think the most critical link isn’t so much being able to grasp air superiority – let alone supremacy- but to deny it to the enemy. For Ukraine this is especially important, and their anti-missile and anti-air defenses are probably the weak links of their change so far. The ones that ,if they fail, will likely be crippling for the war effort in a relatively short time.
But so long as both sides know this and can adjust, I do think the Ukrainians are in a tolerable situation and can focus on slowly building up, including a powerful air wing.
Oh I absolutely agree. Kherson is probably the archtype of what we’ll see, at least in essence even if there are some rad new tactics and equipment there.
Oh I know. And I was arguing that I am utterly opposed to the US taking over the air war and trying to impose a No Fly Zone over Ukraine. Which would lead to at a minimum an air war with the VVS and almost certainly a World War. And in some of the most plane-unfriendly places the world has ever known.
An indigenous Ukrainian Air Force using Western equipment and training is not going to have the same proficiency or performance as Western AFs, especially the USAF and its sisters. But I do think it could be quite influential. Not enough to crush the Russian war effort, but likely enough to cripple it further.
@om
Agreed and well said there. It is jarring. That and the extreme self-righteousness, as if Nooobody Else in the Blog has Ever, EVER heard of the Monroe Doctrine or can imagine it.
I agree that sentence read of Kremlin-inspired spin, but the rest is largely true.
I mean, there is a reason there is a small but vocal minority of Ukrainian loyalists arguing that losing the Donbas and even Crimea would be a secret gift. Motyl is one such case and I linked to a work from him earlier.
Agreed, which is also why I argue his goals are more political than economic, military, or personnel focused. He’d rather rule over a wasteland if it can screw with Ukraine.
Tucker Carlson almost always brings his A game.
Tonight it was A++.
Turtler, re: “I’ve already discussed the “Euromaidan was a Coup” thing before and we discussed it.”
I had to go back and listen to that video again to realize what you were talking about. The guy on the left is Judge Napolitano (who used to be a regular on Fox) who referred to it as a coup. I didn’t notice he’d used that word, which O’Hanlon also used. That wasn’t why I referenced it. More accurate may be overthrown or ousted. I was just showing that the idea that moving NATO eastward was considered a mistake by others.
I don’t want to rehash that other than to say the legal thing which would have gotten the Rada out of the situation was going ahead with the agreement brokered by Germany and France. It was going to diminish Yanukovych’s power and get him out of power sooner. That would have been the legal way to go forward. The fact that the Maidan mob refused to accept that, forcing Yanukovych to flee just reinforces the idea it wasn’t a legal remedy.
It’s my understanding Putin was extremely displeased with Yanukovych. I think Putin expected him to continue to use the police to control the Maidan– which would have resulted in even more bloodshed and literal civil war at that point.
I’m only projecting to think that Yanukovych was enough of a Ukrainian to not want that. More likely the Berkut units had already told him they were no longer going to provide protection.
That would explain why Putin didn’t immediately capitalize on the situation, though it only took a few weeks before the events leading to the Crimean annexation to take place.
Judge Napolitano has a variety of perspectives on his program. Here is the entire interview with O’Hanlon. He also believes the war is going to last for some time.
Charts Suggest Ukraine Won’t be Peaceful Anytime Soon – Michael O’Hanlon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5MjNvw-Bxk
Steve (retired/recovering lawyer) near the beginning of this thread:
The use of the Enter key to divide text into small paragraphs is a wonderful thing.
om, “IIRC Vlad utterly destroyed Mariupol (Donbas Eastern Ukraine) and has no intention of rebuilding it. ”
What are you talking about? Russia only captured Mariupol last May.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail is reporting regarding the arrival of a high-ranking Chinese diplomat for talks with Putin “The communist state said it wants to prevent the crisis from getting out of control, noting that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable ways to resolve the conflict, a position paper from the Chinese foreign ministry released on Friday said.”
By the way, if anyone wants to see the events of 2014 that led to this mess, Vice.com had a series of “Dispatches” during 2014 into 2015, beginning with the Euromaidan revolution and then beginning with the Crimean little green men, the referendum and eventually the expulsion of Ukrainian forces. They then moved on to the Donbas. They are from the Ukrainian perspective, but surprisingly evenhanded.
The Fight for Ukraine: Last Days of the Revolution
This is about 30 minutes, some of the events of the Feb 18-20 bloodshed and then the aftermath after Yanukovych fled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7e6B64Iqqg
vice news Russian Roulette all episodes (1-111)
There are 111 short “Dispatches” from 4 minute to 12 minutes in length showing the events of the separatists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKsLlK52ss&list=PLw613M86o5o7a0FGlPRdt47xiDiggbNsZ&index=1
Brain E:
Yep that’s what they did last May, you are slow on the realization. But back in the spring you weren’t so curious in learning what was going on. Pathetic.
They pretty much destroyed the town of Solidar, and have pretty much destroyed Bakhmut. Funny how Russia has to destroy in order to take what it wants,
Your man Vlad.
Still pimping Vice.
GLSDB and Stormchaser are coming for your Russians.
Turtler, I wasn’t trying to re-litigate the Iraq War. I supported Bush’s decision at the time. It wasn’t until I realized we didn’t have any idea what we were doing. Does the blame belong with Intelligence or State?
There was an interview with John Bolton on the PBS series Frontline, Putin and the Presidents. Bolton was saying the administration thought Putin was accommodating when Bush took office, but the relationship had soured by 2008 and he didn’t know why– even though Bolton recounted the withdrawal from the ABM treaty and the Iraq war.
It’s one of the reasons why I’m skeptical about the actual intelligence of these really smart guys running our government.
I read and skimmed all the comments. But the very first one by Oldflyer certainly echos my thoughts. Om is in there too.
Those that call for a negotiated truce and end of the war do not understand Putin. Even if he did agree (seems he has rejected that already) Putin would use the time to upgrade his military and then really crush Ukraine and cast an eye on other states.
Those that say we are depleting our stock of weapons are right, but also wrong. They (ok They is nebulous) say we will need those weapons to fight China are off based, and I will say wrong. A war with China will be a Naval War and an Air War. Not going to see tanks battles nor artillery duels. And right now it would be touch and go for the US to win.
Tucker is an Isolationist and an Ass.
om, actually back in the spring a missionary from Kyiv was at church. He and his family (Americans) left soon after the invasion and came back to the states. What struck me was all the young families in his church- none of which were apparently volunteering to join the Ukrainian military.
They may have all subsequently joined, but I didn’t sense the urgency.
I guess I don’t know what I would have done in a similar circumstance, since I didn’t enlist during Vietnam (had a college deferment, then a high lottery number). I would like to think I would have enlisted had a foreign country invaded the US.
@Steve
I have to agree with Marisa. Spacing and formatting what you write would help a lot and make it more readable.
Beyond that though…
No, not really. It might be false, but it is neither laughably or patently false. It is indeed debatable. I would probably place Russia below Iran on the pecking order, but I can’t blame those who would disagree.
Third world countries with nuclear weapons can be extremely dangerous, especially ones on the scale of Russia.
Hardly. As Richard Engler pointed out, Biden’s handlers have spent a massive amount of resources to screw with our Southern Border. Merely leaving a void would allow the states (especially Texas) to step in. So the left does not merely have to weaken Federal enforcement of our border, they have to screw with everybody else trying to do so too.
As for the reason we are paying attention to it, Ukraine is kind of important on a global scale. Economically alone it is crucial for food supplies and that risks endangering the actual Third World. Which in turn can boomerang back on us. Add that to Putin’s nonsense and you can see.
As well as the Ukrainian people and government as a whole, and the word of the US government.
I agree, and that’s why I prefer prioritizing border security over foreign aid, including this. UNFORTUNATELY That’s unlikely to fit.
Mostly because when it happened, it was extremely sensitive and thus classified. But it happened, and sometimes (especially early in the Cold War) on a grand scale.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81-01043R002300220007-1.pdf
https://www.historynet.com/the-beast-of-budapest/
Later in the Cold War the US shifted primarily to support roles, sponsoring dissidents like Solidarity in Poland.
https://polishhistory.pl/a-covert-action-reagan-the-cia-and-the-cold-war-struggle-in-poland/
……..REALLY?
You claim to have lived through the Cold War, but do not recall things such as the Berlin Blockade, or the 1961 Tank Standoff, or the massing of communist troops and strategic weapons through Eastern Europe adversely affecting the US’s position in the world?
That strikes me as unlikely.
Offhand, Ukraine was always strategically important and vital economically. But before it wasn’t independent and we hadn’t pledged to protect its independence and territorial integrity, in part to help safeguard our allies like Poland. And considering how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a slap to the face of our agreements – including denuclearization with Ukraine – I fail to see why we shouldn’t regard it as a threat.
You’re about a decade late. At least. Mark Steyn was pointing to the entrenched anti-Western sentiment in places like the Kremlin since shortly after 9/11. And those “Neocons in Washington” – as well as Bubba Clinton and Obama – spent years trying and failing to prove otherwise by courting Putin.
How many more decades shall we try to change Putin’s nature?
Of all the many, MANY problems with our economy, this war’s direct effects are not a major part of it. It’s onerous but nothing like the lockdowns.
God Forbid Germany get pressured to actually meet its NATO spending requirements for a change. That’d be awful.
Moreover, the nature of Ukraine on the global marketplace means that this war was always going to be painful for all sides. Which is also why I fail to see why encouraging more bad actors to do things like it through inaction on our part would be a good idea.
Thank Putin and his ilk for that. You hear about how Kadyrov openly talked about nuking Ukraine and invading Poland and all that?
And no, I’m not exaggerating.
https://www.britishpoles.uk/chechen-leader-ramzan-kadyrov-threatens-poland-with-a-russian-invasion/
https://www.businessinsider.com/peskov-slaps-down-kadyrov-over-emotion-of-nuclear-strike-call-2022-10
Let’s be frank here. Kadyrov is the closest thing in Putin’s Russia to a Himmler or Beria; a powerful and relatively autonomous vassal. He’s also an Islamist terrorist and drug smuggler. And the fact that he feels comfortable shooting his mouth off like this indicates that Putin is at least willing to put up with him doing so, even at the direct expense of other Russian officials demanding he be demoted.
That says nothing good about Putin’s Russia.
“We” DID NOT begin this “stupid and misguided adventure”, the Russian Dictatorship DID.
Moreover, the fact that Putin and Xi very obviously used the Beijing Olympics to help coordinate this shows that all the talk about “driving” Russia “closer” to the PRC and Iran is ultimately tertiary. Putin chose his side as far back as 2014 at the latest, and probably well before that.
https://www.voanews.com/a/at-beijing-olympics-xi-and-putin-strive-for-unity-against-us/6426270.html
We tried that at Minsk I and Minsk II. It didn’t work.
I’d also be much, much more amiable to this decision were it not for the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which we (among others) committed to supporting Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity in exchange for them denuclearizing and turning their Soviet WMD over….to Russia.
(Not the greatest choice in hindsight, is it?).
Putin decided to break that agreement and a host of others when he invaded Ukraine over the course of the past almost-decade. And do you propose that the world or the US becomes safer if we do it?
Depends on which “European Countries.” The Poles, Dutch, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, and Italians certainly are quite concerned, as shown by their commitments.
Ok. There’s a reason why I am giving very little shrift to the left or MSM sources chest thumping on this, and why I will not demonize people simply for disagreeing. Even if I do find some claims baffling.
Which is why basing one’s stances on what the left does is daft and I am not doing it.
I agree, which is why I sure as hell am not basing my stance on Ukraine on what they say so, and why I have REPEATEDLY stated I would sacrifice Ukraine if I thought it would get rid of the left and the domestic rot.
But that’s not going to happen, certainly not overnight. And frankly being able to beat the Left over the head with things such as an armed citizenry defending themselves against the Ooga Booga Villain of their rhetoric helps. As does keeping a certain amount of cereals flowing from one of the world’s breadbaskets and humiliating the left for their green energy nonsense.
Turtler and Steve,
Interesting & informative discussion.
I am truly torn about the equipment & money we are bleeding out to Ukraine, especially knowing that some big (??) percent is being misused, enriching corrupt people, AND putting America in a worse position if a need arises elsewhere for military action. It’s not like we have good inventory … after Biden left stockpiles of
equipment in Afghanistan. Same for oil, since Biden’s drawn down our strategic petroleum reserve.
I’m furious about our open borders, too. Wonder how many terrorists have crossed over?
More than 160 on the watchlist were caught, so I’d bet even more have slipped in.
Plus: millions of alien criminals are here now, making ever more victims of innocent Americans!!
Even “asylum seekers” without previous convictions may turn to crime, to raise money they still owe the cartels for getting them in.
There is blood on so many leftist, anti-American hands.
Sure it’s not useful to moan, but:
I do believe if Trump got his due in 2020, Russia & China wouldn’t be doing all they’re doing. No Ukraine invasion!
And certainly no invasion into America.
When terrorists Biden let in, now laying low, decide to act, I’m hardly going to be glad Biden chose to focus on saving Ukraine.
Actually, I have similar emotions
for innocent future victims of ordinary (non-terrorist) illegal alien criminals.
As I’ve told people who embrace illegal immigration, & stupidly say “Citizens do crimes too!”,
Yes! Indeed! We have plenty of criminals without importing more!
(Sorry for not staying on topic, likely sleepy but fervent rambling.)
Speaking of strategy,
Milley: It’s ‘Extraordinarily Difficult’ for Ukraine to Achieve Military Objective This Year, ‘Maybe, If We’re Lucky’ We’ll Get Negotiations
‘If we’re lucky’ you say sir! Compare/contrast to
Buck Turgidson’s honesty and superior grasp of numbers. Now that’s a general!
I’m willing to approve any set of actions that helps Ukraine, provided the total number of American dead that results from the forseeable Russian response is less than 5000. I’m sure the Tailgunners here will find that my willingness to risk no more than 5000 American lives is evidence of treasonous pro-Putinism, but those people aren’t worth engaging. What’s everyone else’s number?
I predict that my motives in asking for a number will be painted as pro-Putin and treasonous, and there will be a lot of bobbing and weaving in response to a direct question. The reason I’m asking though is that these discussions are devolving into ad hominems and virtue signaling. I think we should focus on the real, like adults. If any two people here that have been arguing in a nasty way reveal their number, and it’s about the same number, that will be very clarifying, because it shows that they are basically in the same place but arguing about how best to achieve it. And people with radically different numbers are going to see that it’s not about being pro- or anti-Putin, but about having a very different calculus of risk. Adults then can have discussions, and the feces-flinging chimps can be ignored.
That’s my number: no more than 5000 American dead, about how many died in Iraq. Doesn’t matter how they get dead, whether they die fighting in Ukraine, or die in a nuked American city, provided that forseeable Russian actions in response to our actions killed them.
So let’s everyone say, how many American dead is worth it to help Ukraine. Anyone who won’t say is either not thinking clearly or not discussing this in good faith. There is some set of actions the US can take where the forseeable Russian response results in American dead. How many American dead is worth it?
It would greatly clarify the discussion if everyone were willing to say. Serious people understand that you cannot meddle in somebody else’s war, no matter how noble you are or how villainous the instigator, without risking the lives of your own people, and serious people should be willing to say how many.
So none of my points were answered brandon thanks you. General petraeus mccrystal and all the standard bearers of this regime do as well. Our economy collapses our education system is contaminated by soviet designed templates but we chase shadows meanwhile our own berzin plot has 400 hundred wrongfully imprisoned patriots
*berzin was the ray epps, who reilly relied on
Frederick:
That was quite something, you pulled a number out of your “tail” and then complain about “Tailgunners” taking you to task because your “back of the Charmin” wild ass guess for acceptsble American casualties would be too small.
Shifting the subject to you very much? Direct American engagement, much less NATO forces has been avoided for good reasons, but you probably know that; remember the short life of the NATO imposed “no fly zone” idea? “Wouldn’t be prudent.” was the correct decision.”
Is a CHATBOT sending you ideas?
cdrsalamander
Friday, February 24, 2023
The Russo-Ukrainian War D+365 Quicklook
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/
Here is the first paragraph – seven points reviewed, short article overall, concise.
“The three day war Russia thought it started a year ago is still going strong.
There are a lot of “One Year” think-pieces out there that are long and detailed. I want to keep things short.
On the day the war started I made 7-points. Let’s review them and see how I did back on 24 FEB 22.”
om’s link was to cdrsalamander’s home page.
Here’s the link to the post, in case it gets pushed down by new ones.
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-russo-ukrainian-war-d365-quicklook.html
om, I will try and be clear. The Russian invasion of Feb. 2022 was wrong, and just muddies the waters of what I believe are the justifiable claims of the DNR, LNR and Crimean for separation from Ukraine.
Why did these three areas declare their independence from Ukraine following the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014, and not other regions? Because these were most ethnic Russian/pro Russian areas in Ukraine.
Based on voting patterns, it’s obvious of a great divide between these areas and Western Ukraine. The Donbas oblasts– Luhansk and Donetsk had 32% and 27% native Ukrainian speakers in the 1990s and Crimea had only 11% native Ukrainian speakers during the same time period. These were areas with majority/large majority Russian speakers.
Looking at voting patterns between 1991-2006, Luhansk oblast voted 17% nationalist/pro independence and 69% communist/pro Russia. Donetsk oblast voted 20% nationalist/pro independence and 63% communist/pro Russia. Crimea voted 17% nationalist/pro independence and 60% communist/pro Russia. The remaining votes were split among other party affiliations. They aligned with Russia.
Rather than forcing these regions to accept western Ukraine control again, which will just lead to more violence, a negotiated settlement allowing these areas to align with Russia would be best for Ukraine in the long run.
Russia has made attempts for a negotiated settlement.
Russia Briefing reported on Jan. 1, 2022
“A settlement for the current Ukraine conflict would be the approved integration of Luhansk and Donetsk into Russia and agreements from NATO to keep rocket weapons systems beyond a ten-minute flight time to Russia, in return for Moscow pulling back troops on Ukraine’s border.”
Fiona Hill and Angela Stent wrote in a September/October Foreign Affairs article:
“According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”
https://raheemkassam.substack.com/p/russia-and-ukraine-came-to-peace
By the way, Raheem Kassam was in Ukraine during the Euromaidan Revolution.
There needs to be a mechanism short of war for any sort of peaceful separation. The international community has recognized a case of a unilateral declaration of independence in the case of Kosovo, but ignored Crimea when it used the same justification for its independence declaration in 2014.
That should be something the international community should seek to establish. Yes, it will create problems for politically/ethnically/ideologically divided countries– but it’s much preferable to the only option now available– civil war.
Brian E:
You seem pretty cocksure about what must happen and what will happen.
Time will tell.
The question is why we have made this a quintessential question because marxism please the administration already sees us as kulaks its just the latest thing after blm and vaccine mandates but this one leads ‘on the eve of destruction” (ht barry mcguire)
The first Iraq war started with Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, sustained under Clinton, ended with Bush, who offered several reasons to end the ceasefire.
The second Iraq war started with Obama’s premature evacuation and transfer payment to the Iranian regime. The second Iraq war ended with Trump’s abortion of Obama/Biden’s terrorist Iranian proxy.
The Ukrainian war started with a violent Western-backed coup in 2014, expanded under one illegitimate regime including denial of essential services to Ukrainians in Crimea, sustained over eight years with Kiev-aligned military and paramilitary axis attacks on Ukrainians in Donbas, then amplified under the present apartheid regime, part of Obama’s World War Spring series and Biden’s Slavic Spring with “benefits”.
Brian E:
The problem isn’t a lack of clarity on your part. I just don’t buy what you are selling. Quotes from before Vkad started his war and early into his war are past their pull dates IMO.
Events, son, events.
marxism please the administration already sees us as kulaks its just the latest thing after blm and vaccine mandates
Class-disordered ideology (e.g. feminism, masculinism), a subset of DIEversity
Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter is a Pro-Choice ethical religious principle and practice.
It is a disservice to conflate vaccines with non-sterilizing, low effectiveness treatments (“vaxxxines”) a la seasonal flu shots, whereas vaccines are tested for safety, effectiveness, and sterility over a decade or more in at-risk cohorts.
@n.n.
Agreed to some degree.
Obama wasn’t President in 2003 so I’m rather confused.
Aka the Ukrainian Legislature voting to remove Yanukovych from power, which Brian E and I have argued about extensively and was certainly not an example of impeccably constitutional politics, but was also a reaction to anything-but-impeccably-constitutional-politics from Yanukovych himself. As I pointed out (and will get back to responding to).
This is fucking absurd and you should be ashamed of trying to pull this nonsense.
The “denial of essential services to Ukrainians in Crimea’ was a RESPONSE TO THE ILLEGITIMATE, ARMED OCCUPATION AND ANNEXATION OF THE PENNINSULA BY RUSSIAN FORCES.
There is absolutely no piece of law on the world that forces one country to pay the utility bills of an occupying enemy force on its territory without consideration (there HAVE been some incredibly weird peace deals and the like addressing it, like Japanese provisioning of Allied occupation troops and the ultimately ill fated payments Charles I of England and Scotland had to make to Scottish Rebel Armies occupying Northern England with the support of dissenters in the English Parliament after the Bishops War, but those are formal diplomatic arrangements).
If Putin wanted the Ukrainian government to continue providing services to the locals in the Donbas and to the Russian forces stationed in Sevastopol, he simply had to refrain from invading and claiming to annex the place.
Also the Kremlin has happily abused utilities before.
Oh for crying out loud.
The main part of the war started with Moscow-sponsored military and paramilitary attacks on Ukrainian government facilities and loyalist militaries. As can be seen if you’ve bothered researching the protracted sieges of Donetsk and Luhansk, which I note featured the first use of heavy artillery in the urban sprawls of Eastern Ukraine…. by the Russian government and its local clients.
Another thing that tends to get memory holed by those trying to whitewash the Kremlin’s guilt for starting the war and the resulting humanitarian disaster.
Moreover, if you bother charting the fighting from 2014-2016 even cursorily, it becomes VERY obvious that the Ukrainian loyalists were on the strategic defense, being attacked by enemies that had the initiative and usually had numerical and firepower superiority.
As again shown by things like Donetsk, Luhansk, and Debaltseve.
“Apartheid regime”?
I don’t recall the National Party being voted out of power by a Black man or Indian who natively spoke Zulu.
Calling Ukraine an Apartheid regime is stupid when you realize even the local murderous Neo-Fascists happily recruit from ethnic Russians and Russophones (which indeed is one reason why Azov is so justifiably infamous; they tend to speak the same languages as the Russian and Separatist troops and so not only have they pulled some nasty sucker punch infiltration tactics but their social media BS tends to circulate widely).
All of which is a hell of a way to whitewash Putin’s actions and that of other tyrants like Gaddafi and Assad.
I despise Obama and Biden but that hardly means I’m going to blame them for Ukraine deciding that Putin breaking the rules regarding Crimea means they had to pay for utilities to occupied territories. Especially since those territories were supposedly Rightful Russian Clay and thus the obligation of the Russian Government to tend to.
Agreed.
n.n.:
I was going to write: “Many of your statements are simply false. I don’t have time to deal with them now, but ‘Turtler’ may try to tackle them.”
I see that’s already happened just now.
A heated debate. One that needs to be had at the national level, IMO.
Biden and Co. (Biden + the DOD, State Department, CIA, NSA, Obama holdovers, etc.) have failed to react properly to the aggression by Putin’s Russia.
1. They have been gradualists in what weapons and aid they prpovide. Polish MIGs could have been approved early on and been used almost immediately. Same with tanks. They didn’t go all in because:
a) They are leery of Putin’s nuclear threats.
b) Or maybe they actually want an extended war. Will it put more money in their pockets?
2. Opening up our energy industry and producing full bore is the most effective thing they can do to discourage Putin and to strengthen our economy. Biden and Co. won’t do it because they’re in the grasp of the Climate Cult. So, they must not really fear Putin’s nuclear threats. Or…..the Green New Deal is putting money in their pockets.
3. A cease fire and possible peace deal was nixed by the NATO partners (especially the U.S. and UK) back in the spring of 2022. Why? The answer was that Putin had to go. So, the objective changed from defending Ukraine to regime change in Russia. Why? Will Putin’s replacement be easier to deal with?
4. A quagmire, which this appears to be because neither side seems able gain and hold territory, will favor Russia because the West will eventually tire of the blood and treasure being spent. (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan as prior examples.) If China and India weren’t supporting Russia, they might not be able to hold up economically. How do we get at least India on our side? Apparently, Biden and Co. have no idea.
5. Biden and Co. have weakened our armed forces with requirements for DEI/CRT training that has lowered morale and led to difficulty in recruiting and retaining personnel. This is the opposite of what they should be doing if they’re serious about countering threats from any aggressor. Our military should be as strong as we can make it. Peace through strength and the ability to use it. They have not done that. Biden and Co have spoken loudly and carried a big soft.
6. Biden and Co. have weakened us economically by harnessing our oil and gas industry, deficit spending that’s created inflation, increasing regulation that’s hampered growth, and failing to improve our supply chain. We are facing a recession and will be economically weaker in the coming year. Yet, Biden goes to Europe and talks tough when anyone with eyes to see knows it’s mostly bluster.
Putin’s wrong and should be opposed by all nations that value their sovereignty, but Biden ad n Co. have blundered into this war effort and now they have no idea how to bring it to a successful conclusion. God help us.
Brian E:
It is pretty weak tea to cite voting patterns from 1991-2006 as a rationalization for dismemberment of Ukraine. IIRC post 2006 Vlad has been actively meddling in the internal affairs of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, meddling that involved the Russian military and or his “little green men.” I’m surprised you don’t cite the results of elections held in 2022 in areas occupied or liberated by Vlad’s military.
Sorry no sale.
om, in the 2010 election of pro-Russian Yanukovych that he won nationwide by 49% to 45% Luhansk oblast voted 71%; Dontesk oblast voted 76%; and Crimea voted 61% for Yanukovych.
All three of these regions held referendum in the early 1990’s for autonomy– well before Putin was elected in Russia, so the desire to align with Russia predates Putin.
You should watch the first 12 Vice dispatches which focus on Crimea. Pro-Russian sentiment was genuine. In fact, after the referendum to declare independence and the Ukrainian military was evicted from Crimea, at one garrison about half of the soldiers decided to join the “other side.” Some chose to resign and stay in Crimea. Those that chose to remain loyal to Ukraine were transported by bus to the mainland. At another compound, the Russian and Ukrainian commanders reach a negotiated settlement– “if you don’t shoot, we won’t shoot.”
The area of the separatist regions, DPR, LPR and Crimea are about 7% of Ukraine’s territory– hardly “dismemberment”.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/a_sober_view_of_the_russoukrainian_war.html
Brain E:
You can’t seem to grasp a basic fact that you are building a case on information that is from 2006, 2010, and 2014. What is the date on your calendar? Mine is 02/24/2023. IIRC Vlad chose yo invade, an act of war one year ago.
Your insistence on negotiations to give Vlad a legitimate title to what he took by force of arms is curious given your bleats about Yanukovitch and legal processes.
Turtler has his work cut out for him with you.
“You can’t seem to grasp a basic fact that you are building a case on information that is from 2006, 2010, and 2014. What is the date on your calendar? Mine is 02/24/2023.”
Yes. That’s always the best way to understand a problem and find a solution. Just ignore everything that ever happened in the past to focus megalomaniacally on THE RECENT THING. That approach has an absolutely spotless track record of success. And it’s also wonderful at predicting what is going to happen next.
Mike
“There is absolutely no piece of law on the world”
Uhhh…how did the invasion and occupation of Iraq stand when it came to international law? Or how about invading Panama to get Manuel Noriega? Or a whole bunch of CIA activities over the decades?
Mike
om, I was going to say I was appreciating your civil responses– but then you reverted. Oh well.
I’m a pragmatic person. I think Crimea is non-negotiable to Putin. Ukraine has stated it’s non-negotiable to them. So, can Ukraine retake Crimea?
Without air superiority, most analysts think it unlikely.
You’ve obliquely mentioned a couple of longer range weapons as being key. One of them the GLSDB:
“On 3 February 2023, the United States government announced an aid package for Ukraine as part of assistance during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine that would include the GLSDB which will be used in the Ukraine-operated HIMARS to hit Russian targets that had been moved out of GMLRS range. This will mark the weapon’s first export and use in combat. However, since the weapon is not part of the U.S. military inventory and can’t be launched from current Ukrainian equipment, it is estimated it could take up to nine months for Boeing and the U.S. government to agree on the terms of the contract and perform necessary retrofits on ground launchers.”
It’s possible the government will waive normal procurement times to speed up production.
Will this weapons system be the “gamechanger”? Rather than continue the war with the resulting tens of thousands of deaths to find out, I would rather find an off-ramp for both sides.
Europeans have signaled they think the war will be over by the end of summer. That might be read that the war WILL be over by the end of summer.
If Ukraine fights on with little hope of gaining their objectives, I would rather they do it with the support of Europe rather than the US.
Brian E:
See posts by cdrsalamander, Perun about support from Europe. Or not. Ignorance tests patience, you keep repeating old worn tropes.
See Reporting from Ukraine about potential uses of GLSDB or other long range precision fires. The Russian army is severely vulnerable logistically, and yes that includes Crimea.
Time will tell.
Brain E:
Here is the link to possible very long range, possibly GLSDB, rocket attacks on Russian logistics:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mTl35HP2VcM
To repeat, the Ukrainian Army and Russian Army don’t care how many Russian soldiers die for Putin.
Did Bunge pop out of his bunker? Whatever.
They really havent learned a thing from the wars that enriched kkr and dubai real rstate that left a generation of broken bodies a more powerful taliban which now brokers deals with iran and qatar all parties made richer in thsse exercises
om linked to a video showing that Ukrainians had hit ammunition/supply depots behind Russian lines indicating that the new Ground Launch Small Diameter Bombs will be a game changer for Ukraine.
It will certainly slow their advance, but will it allow Ukraine to launch a counter-offensive without still facing the meatgrinder advances this type of war typifies?
Still unknown.
“cdrsalamander”, a blog om often links to reported this a few days ago:
“NATO recently completed a large survey of its ammunition stockpiles and found supplies have been considerably depleted by the war in Ukraine, according to a new report.
Many NATO countries were said to have already had weapons stockpiles that did not meet the bloc’s targets prior to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago.
… the alliance found in a survey that those stockpile numbers have since dwindled even further as NATO continues to arm Ukraine at a rate that doesn’t match weapons production.
Reuters also quoted an unnamed European diplomat who said: “If Europe were to fight Russia, some countries would run out of ammunition in days.”
According to Reuters, many officials from NATO countries had “considered wars of attrition with large-scale artillery battles a thing of the past.” Therefore, multiple NATO countries had let their stockpiles decrease even before Russia launched its prolonged conflict.”
Will Ukraine even have enough ammunition to launch a significant drive to the sea, necessary to retake Crimea?
I’ve heard a few analysts say it’s within the realm of possibility for Ukraine to retake Crimea, but offer no strategy on how that would occur. I don’t think it’s an insignificant question.
Brain E:
The Russian ouster from Kiev, Khrkhiv, and Kherson were not “meatgrinder” offensive operations. In case you have missed it, those meatgrinder approaches are the Russian tactics in the East. In those areas, so far, excepting Kharkhiv, the Ukrainians have been on defense extracting the maximum casualties from attacking Russians. You have to pay attention or you just repeat a talking point, aka, meatgrinder. What has been hobbling Russian meatgrinder stupidity? They don’t have enourmous capacity to obliterate Ukrainian positions with artillery fire any more. Too many ammo depots gone boom; they were in HMARS range. US also supplied and Ukraine employed 155 mm howitzer rounds that deploy anti-tank mine submunitions. Russian army lost 30+ tanks and IFVs in Vuladar last week to such rounds; immobilize the vehicles and then kill them with other arty fires. You have to pay attention. Or not.
Logistics. Russia depends on railways. Russia is not agile. Ukraine knows where the depots and command centers are. Kaboom.
Regarding arty ammunition; Perun did an entire episode to that specific topic about a month ago. The information is available. You have to pay attention.
THE WAR IN UKRAINE ONE YEAR ON
by The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies
“The coming months could prove pivotal; a successful Russian offensive or further attrition of Ukraine’s forces could shift the balance. Equally, if a Russian offensive fails, it could lead to a cascading collapse of morale among poorly motivated troops.
If Russia does stay on the defensive, however, Ukrainian forces equipped with Western armour will have to take the offensive against a more ‘primitive’ but larger and well-entrenched force.
In the medium term, Russia believes that the exhaustion of Western materiel and the erosion of both Ukraine’s manpower and its economic backbone will create the conditions for Russian success.”
Based on this assessment, Ukraine must survive 2023 before the vulnerabilities in Russia’s military industrial capacity may falter. Sanctions at this point seem to have not had significant impact on Russia’s economy.
“Both Russia and Ukraine will face windows of vulnerability. For Ukraine, this window will be in 2023, when its resources and, in particular, its economy will be heavily stretched. Launching offensives on defended Russian positions – even with Western armour – will prove difficult. However, if the Ukrainians can induce Russia to waste manpower in offensive actions during this period, and if the country’s backers can help sustain its economy, Russia will begin to face its own resource constraints.
Moreover, given time, a more thorough effort to equip Ukrainian forces along Western lines can be sustained. If Ukraine can cross the immediate period of vulnerability it currently faces, its prospects will improve markedly.”
It may be a long war.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/war-in-ukraine-one-year-on/interactive#article
Brain E:
That is one of the sources cited and used by Perun. The information is not hidden.
The current Russian offensive appears to have gone south already. Time will tell.
@MBunge
Would it kill you to have a shred of coherence, Mike?
Because pretty much everything you’ve posted on this thread has been incoherent, rude, condescending, combative, and worst of all quite badly composed.
Firstly you picked a fight by telling people to study history and that not every bad guy is Hitler. Something I completely agree with, which is why when I talk about interwar period bad guys and their relevance to the invasion of Ukraine I regularly talk about Japanese warlords in Asia and their quest to conquer China, such as Doihara, Ishikawa, and Tojo.
Then you began telling us if we have ever heard of the Monroe Doctrine, in an attempt to draw a false equivalence between it and the Kremlin’s claim it can dissect the nations on its border at whim, something that even the most violent, interventionist, and rash itinerations of the Monroe Doctrine (around the time of the aforementioned Olney Memorandum) Never claimed the US had a right to do.
But now you want to shift focus and talk about building cases from older information (something I completely agree with) without actually levying much?
What is the point you’re trying to make, dear “Mike”?
Because I’ve read every word of every comment you’ve made on this thread and you sure as hell don’t seem to have one.
I don’t agree with everybody on this thread, as should be obvious from reading. But I’m more than willing to engage civilly when possible and concede when I think they are right or at least have a point, as I have with Brian E and others. But there’s only so much sniping one can take.
om said I have the patience of a saint, but frankly Neo has to have had to deal with all the fighting and skirmishing. Especially when it comes to conduct like yours, “Mike.”
If this is evidence of the level of replies you plan to keep for the future, I’d suggest you might be better served not commenting at all.
Hey, everybody! Remember how sanctions were supposed to destroy the Russian economy long before now? About that…
“True to form, nothing of the kind has come to pass. The Russian currency is trading slightly higher than when Singh’s prediction went on the air. Inflation is at almost the same level. Moscow shops continue to offer a full range of western consumer goods, while e-commerce trade with the outside world has actually grown by 30 percent. The IMF is projecting that the Russian economy will actually grow this year and next. Despite baroque efforts to crimp Putin’s oil export income, “Urals crude” continues to flow at levels — roughly four million barrels a day — unchanged from pre-war levels, not least through Indian, Turkish, Chinese, and Senegalese refineries, whence it moves unimpeded into European gas tanks and power plants.”
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/02/22/are-sanctions-hurting-the-us-more-than-russia/
Mike
MBunge:
No, I don’t remember that, and I certainly never thought it would happen – nor do I think anyone who comments regularly here did, either. It was clear almost from the outset that other countries would be happy to buy what Russia was selling.
Bunge cites a post from responsiblestatecraft.org an organ of the Quincy Institute (see Wickedmedia) funded by Soros and other multiple left of center foundations (Ford Foundation etc.). The Quincy Institute was founded by Andrew Bacevich an ex army loon and persistent critic of, wait for it, the Iraq War, and Bushitler(?).
Okay Bunge, you can go back to you bunker.
BTW Bunge, weapons are more effective in dealing with tyrants like Vlad. Notice that Vlad had to put SAMs onto the Kremlin buildings?
“Then you began telling us if we have ever heard of the Monroe Doctrine, in an attempt to draw a false equivalence between it and the Kremlin’s claim it can dissect the nations on its border at whim”
Uhh…for somebody who claims to understand history, you might want to check with the folks in Central and South America. They may inform you that from their perspective, Russia and the U.S. aren’t that different.
“But there’s only so much sniping one can take.” Oh, I’m so sorry your feelings are hurt. I’m sure the Ukrainians and Russians being killed in this war are sympathetic to how much you are suffering. I’m sure the people wiped out if this mess escalates to a nuclear exchange will also appreciate how put out you are.
Here’s a tip. If you don’t want me to be sharp with you, don’t make idiotic references to the 1930s, references which even you apparently now admit are not really all that accurate or appropriate to this situation. SO WHY DID YOU MAKE IT? To make yourself feel like a good person?
You want to know why I’m so agitated? Here’s something Barack Obama had to say about the subject of Russia and Ukraine in 2016:
“In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, President Obama laid out key elements of his approach to foreign policy. There is much in it with which one can agree. “Don’t do stupid s——” makes sense as an axiom of foreign policy—or of any policy, for that matter—as does taking deliberate and strategic decisions about when to engage American military power.
As regards the two-year-old conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the president said Ukraine is a core interest for Moscow, in a way that it is not for the United States. He noted that, since Ukraine does not belong to NATO, it is vulnerable to Russian military domination, and that “we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for.””
When Barack Obama is the voice of reason, it makes me angry. And what makes me even angrier is that if eight months from now, if Russia has conquered Ukraine and everything that entails, I’m pretty sure not a single one of the warmongers/cheerleaders around here will ask themselves “Wow. Maybe we should have handled this whole situation differently?” They didn’t learn ANYTHING from the Iraq War. They’re repeating the same mistakes, though now they’re now following and trusting in someone they distrust and despise in almost every other matter. And they’ll probably keep making the same exact mistakes again for the rest of their lives and mine.
Mike
Bunge:
Vlad best stay on the ground floor, people tend to fall out of windows in Russia. Highly unlikely though.
Oh noes, Bunge has deployed the dreaded all caps!
And he’s back with the Iraq War. LOL
Bunge:
Asking for a friend. In your mind are Russia and the USA much different?
Life in a bunker can alter a person’s perspectives, or so I’ve heard.
@MBunge
Not only do I remember some of that, I remember we’ve had sanctions on Russia to one degree or another for years. I also am old enough to remember discussions about whether or not sanctions had failed regarding Saddam’s Iraq and Castro’s Cuba, and if so to what degree.
So surprise surprise. A national economy isn’t going to collapse within a month when sanctions are imposed. Shocking news…. from the 1990s. If not earlier.
But while perverse Pollyanna like projections that the Russian economy would cave within a matter of weeks and force an end to the war were wrong, they are doing damage. As the Russian government itself has accepted.
Because the question isn’t whether or not the Russian government will weather the sanctions. It’s for how long, and how quickly the damage will come.
No, actually it has. Especially given the caving living standards.
This is the problem when relying on an Oped writer for economic statistics.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/impact-sanctions-russian-economy/
And that’s a BAD thing from the Kremlin’s POV, significantly better than the Ruble’s value trading at bottom rates but still bad.
The reason it’s trading slightly higher is because the Russian Government basically blew up the economy in order to jack up the value of the Ruble, including things such as confiscatory fiscal policy, bans on credit and financial outflow, and the like.
As it turns out, that staved off the Initial crisis but if anything they overdid it.
So now you have a situation where the Ruble is a zombified currency with its value kept artificially high due to state interference and the market being screwed up, while on the black market its value has cratered.
That’s a BAD freaking combination to deal with and why the Kremlin’s financial gurus are course-correcting, trying to *DEFLATE* the Ruble in order to make its stated market value align closer with what the currency’s actually worth to avoid an economic crisis and possible loss of faith in the Ruble on the domestic market.
https://marketmonetarist.com/2022/04/03/the-ruble-has-appreciated-exactly-because-the-sanctions-work/
Again, breaking news…. From Cold War Argentina.
Which is still quite high even in the modern Keynes-dominated financial scene, and caused in large part by high government debt.
Because it’s freaking Moscow, heart of the nation and Imperial Center. Because the Kremlin would rather have people literally starve to death not just in Buryatia but in Smolensk than deal with the Siloviki and the Moscow Public shorten their shopping lists.
(And for the record, No, the Russian Economy is nowhere near in bad enough straits to actually have people starving to death in Buryatia or Smolensk. But the fact that Brezhnev was more than happy to accept such a tradeoff should underline how important Moscow is.)
However, even those well to do, rather pampered Muscovites are suffering from the hits to the piggybank, as well as the credit crunch.
Which is freaking unsurprising considering the dips to non e-commerce.
Here’s the actual source linked and what it said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/business/economy/imf-world-economic-outlook.html#:~:text=to%20be%20faltering.-,The%20I.M.F.,a%20raft%20of%20Western%20sanctions.
The problem is that that 0.3% (if it actually actualizes, and even the Russian State is leery) would be against the backdrop of inflationary fiscal problems and the ongoing war.
Cockburn’s wrong on two points.
Firstly: They weren’t “unchanged from pre-war levels.” Which particularly isn’t surprising if you compare oil consumption of Urals Crude in the aforementioned markets versus those in Europe and elsewhere.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-20/russia-s-oil-exports-collapsed-since-g-7-sanctions-began
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Russian-Oil-Exports-Plunged-By-820000-Bpd-Last-Week.html
Secondly: What Cockburn DOESN’T state is also telling: the prices Russia’s government had to pay in order to sustain the export level it did.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-oil-sold-india-below-price-cap-buyers-market-2022-12-14/
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3210640/india-china-enjoy-discount-russian-oil-eu-tightens-price-cap
Put simply, the remaining countries willing to take Russian oil used their leverage to negotiate rather steep discounts for themselves, usually starting around 10% and often going much further. Meaning that Russia’s actively taking in less money than it previously was.
This is rich considering the issues I pointed with Cockburn.
Then why is Russian economic input starting to collapse, and especially in exports outside of the hydrocarbons issue?
I’m not even sure what the heck this incoherent drivel is supposed to mean, but there are very real costs to being unable to sell oil to Germany directly, get tech support from FN on the line, and having to lean more on the PC.
Utter codswallop, for the reasons I mentioned. Attempts by mostly Russia and the PRC to push for a “Dedollarization” using the crisis were rejected by the likes of the Saudis, even when the latter are justifiably gloating at Biden for his snubbing of them. Because it turns out that the global public took a look at what the Russian Financial System did to the Ruble and recognized that investing in a currency where the government could do THAT to its value was a BAD IDEA.
Uh what? Ill-considered how? Seizure of foreign exchange reserves and other property held by malcontents in foreign areas is pretty normal.
Yeah no.
Cockburn’s cocking it up. The Saudis, at least for now, have said not just no but “Hell No.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lguEsu6nYS0
Because unsurprisingly, Dollars are not just a hell of a lot more convenient for the Saudis, but they also don’t want to put too much trust in the Yuan.
And I’m pretty sure Cockburn KNOWS this didn’t happen, because they didn’t even provide any links to it.
So put it simply “Mike”, you apparently suck at proofing your own sources.
@MBunge
Firstly: I understand history far better than someone trying to claim that Saddam’s consular staff working with Al Qaeda did not constitute an alliance. I also understand the US’s often sordid role in Central and South America (and indeed, I’ve talked with many folks there).
Secondly: I sure as hell understand a Motte and Bailey tactic. Which is what this is. A classic argument in bad faith.
You went from saying
I pointed out how utterly stupid and ahistorical this comparison was because for all the problems with the Monroe Doctrine, it did not claim the US had a unilateral right to annex any countries or their territory it chose in the Western Hemisphere. Which isn’t surprising because if it had, it would’ve died within a few years under the guns of the Royal Navy.
The closest thing the US got to what Russia did in Ukraine was the Mexican-American War (and indeed the parallels are striking, complete with separatist states on nominally Mexican soil as well as claims over about a third of Mexico’s territory). But even that didn’t originate from Monroe but from the US claiming to annex Texas, which the brainlets in Ciudad Mexico had never stopped fighting over.
The US would kill you handily for adopting policies they didn’t like, making alliances with the wrong people, and on occasion conducting nationalization without checking with them, but it had limited interest in expanding its territory. And has been giving much of it back as Panama can attest.
Being unable to refute this point (because you sure as hell don’t know the history or the law on the subjects as well as I do), you then retreated from the Bailey to the Motte with
As if I hadn’t spoken at length about the Monroe Doctrine or US policy before, and as if I have never met a Hispanic American in my life. Because apparently only Bunge has.
Because apparently appealing to SUBJECTIVE impressions (as if I’m obliged to treat Open Veins of Latin America as a definitive or correct work) is a useful counter to OBJECTIVE facts. Because you can’t actually point to the US annexing the likes of Veracruz in 1914 or Panama in 1989.
In any case, are America and Russia not that different? Sure. I’ll freely admit that. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a hell of a lot of very important differences. Starting with the fact that the US has not waged costly and counterproductive tariff and trade wars with all of its neighbors several times in the past two decades, even with those most closely aligned to it.
The US has also not claimed the right to unilaterally seize and annex territory in the Western Hemisphere, very much contrary to your assertion.
No, you’re not, so stop lying.
How many Ukrainians and Russians have you talked to, “Mike”? Probably fewer than I have.
Moreover, what the fuck is that argument supposed to mean? That we the people here on this blog are supposed to put up with you acting like a dishonest asshole who cannot even fact check their own sources (as you obviously DID NOT with the Cockburn article) or make a consistent point because ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD people are fighting and dying?
Yeah, that’s what we call a non-sequitur in formal logic.
Or “Bunge desperately trying to CYA after being called out for acting in a disgraceful fashion unbefitting of a commenter on Neo’s blog.”
Oh and by the way: You really think many Ukrainians or Russians would find your conduct worth defending?
I can try and ask some, if you’re interested.
Apparently you think they should care about you being called out for the sophistry you’ve been peddling. Why else would you be trying to climb onto their corpses in an attempt to claim the moral high ground to excuse yourself from basic blog commenter etiquette?
I’m sorry dipshit, but you’re not the Cosmic Judge of what references to the 1930s are and aren’t idiotic. And the fact that you are not is clearly shown by how you’ve been called out for this disgusting, pseudo-intellectual claptrap by others in this very same thread.
Starting with oldflyer.
And if you want to actually PERSUADE people their their references to the 1930s are “idiotic”, then why not put some actually effort into the argumentation? Preferably without gratuitous insults or condescension?
Because giving “Tips” like this not only doesn’t PERSUADE anybody that you, Oh Mighty Mike, are correct, but it’s actually more likely to make them think you are WRONG precisely because you have Goose Egg with which to back up your claims and your caustic manner indicates bad faith acting as a substitute for it.
Let me dissect this condescending, dishonest idiocy.
Firstly: Where did I “admit” those references “are not really all that accurate or appropriate to this situation”?
QUOTE ME.
I know full well you understand the concept, as shown in this very comment. So you can do it.
Secondly: Acknowledging that there are DIFFERENCES in a given situation and one being references does not mean that comparisons are completely useless. After all, history doesn’t repeat but it can rhyme. There aren’t going to be any 1-1 comparisons between an event in the past and an event now.
But that doesn’t mean that things like attempts to establish puppet governments in occupied territories and hold rigged votes in an attempt to create plausible deniability and apparent legitimacy are new tricks, that overconfidence isn’t a hell of a killer, or that there’s only so much you can do with the Navy against a fundamentally land based power. ESPECIALLY in the age of Missiles.
I know you know this, considering you have been (insincerely) alleging people need to study more history if they do not see things Your way, and clearly understand that this was never a 1-1 comparison with the likes of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But apparently you don’t want to give to your opponents and those you hate the same allowances you demand for yourself and (correctly) expect others to grant you.
And you come here trying to lecture me about history and asking why I made references to the 1930s (and not just to Hitler, your previous straw man being that others were acting as if every bad guy was Hitler) if they aren’t a 1-1 comparison?
Thou art a hypocrite.
A very arrogant hypocrite.
Oh. After blatantly insulting me, acting like a lying asshole, and arguing in bad faith Mike Bunge wants to ask if I want to know why Mike Bunge is so agitated?
James Lindsay has something called the Iron Law of Woke Projection. Might be worth checking out.
But to answer: I do want to know why you are agitated, since knowledge is power, but I don’t actually care that much why you are so. After all, the reasons for your agitation and your illogical behavior are no excuse for why you are doing such behavior, and aren’t much evidence.
Turns out that when you act crass, rude, and dishonest to others, they tend not to be so gentle or understanding. Shocking, right?
You don’t seem to need much reason to get angry and take it out on people who do not deserve it.
In any case, even Biden and his puppeteers have been pointedly avoiding the issue of going to war with Russia over Ukraine in the aforementioned “engage American military power” issue. They have however recognized that Russia winning is at a minimum bad for them, and have supported supplying the Ukrainians with the resources to resist.
Not at all unlike the decision to engage in large scale loaning to first the Chinese Nationalist Government and then the Western Allies.
(See? Those pesky 1930s keep popping up). Which I think is an appropriate policy given the stakes and interests, between trying to do a dumb and probably apocalyptic thunder run on Moscow and allowing the Kremlin to break international law and try to partition its neighbors Further without opposition.
So in other words, you’re justifying acting like a rude, dishonest little bitch TODAY and abusing both our goodwill and Neo’s patience with you….. On the grounds of what you think we MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT DO in a *hypothetical future.*
And you apparently think openly admitting this is supposed to help you in this discussion?
What’s worse is that if you had bothered reading and remembering, WE ALREADY HAVE ASKED OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER “MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE HANDLED THIS WHOLE SITUATION DIFFERENTLY”.
So not only do you not understand history, logic, or what constitutes good blog conduct, you don’t even understand what the other commentators on these threads in this blog have already written about extensively.
And you’re using your willful ignorance of that fact that justify acting like a dishonest asshole. Great Show.
Rather than raising hypothetical questions about how Central or South Americans, Ukrainians, or Russians feel about something in an attempt to make yourself look better, why don’t you spend more time asking yourself how the other people on this blog feel about your “contributions” (to the extent they can be called that)?
After all, you sure as hell haven’t given much of a damn about trying to figure out how the Russians and Ukrainians actually feel, as I pointed out with my “Ask Kharkhiv.”
It doesn’t look like you learned much either.
You tried to rant to my face about how Saddam Hussein was not allied to Al Qaeda and did not have WMDs, and when I dumped contrary evidence on your head you desperately reached to intellectualize it away rather than admitting you were wrong in substance. You also don’t seem to have learned much about the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and particularly the steps to help nourish and train a military that can actually stand and fight on the ground under its own power (which we more or less succeeded in in Iraq and Northern Syria but failed in Afghanistan).
The finger you point at “they” on this issue leave four pointing back at you.
I’ve happily admitted my prior judgements on Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as where I was wrong and where I was right. I’ve done it a few times over in these threads Have you?
Not really. Mostly repeating new ones.
Who is “they” and who is the “someone they distrust and despise in almost every other matter”?
Because it sounds a hell of a lot like you’re constructing another imaginary caricature of the opponents you can’t defeat in an actual debate.
I’ve already made it clear that I don’t trust Biden on Ukraine, or Obama, or even Zelenskyy or the like. I came to my conclusions on Ukraine well before most others, and before Biden or Zelenskyy came to be President (at least officially in the case of the former).
Most of what I have seen since about 2014 has had minor effects on my stance.
Most people may not have been that way, I can only speak for myself. But I also know I’m not alone.
And I also know “they” don’t deserve the kind of blanket smear job you’re doing.
Pot Kettle Black.
In the meantime, you’ve not earned the justification to be sharp with me on this issue.
Disgusting behavior like this is likely to cost you the right to be sharp with me on this issue, especially since Neo has made her stance on conduct like this very clear from you.
If you want to convince, stop scattershotting quotes and articles you didn’t check, stop trying to act as if you are cosmic arbiter of what is and isn’t appropriate parallels to draw from history, and try making a cohesive argument.
The personal attacks and trolling behavior is pretty outrageous. I don’t like Putin. I distrust the propaganda around this situation. I don’t trust any effective military or social political goal in this mess which defends American interests. The way the US leadership bungled Afghanistan chiefly comes to mind.
We see how badly we have done in limiited counterinsurgency action who has failed upwards austin and milley who have demonstrated they despise their own military their own people who bend over backwards to xi.
@Frank B
Agreed. It grates on me. Which is also why I make a point to avoid it when at all possible and why I prefer discussing matters on their merits civilly. But self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and incompetence are not appeal
Agreed entirely.
I fear this is the princess bride, and we’re surrounded by vizzinis, I mean would you trust them to sell you a car, much less manage a major intervention, in the snake pit of europe,
Thanks Neo for hosting this space and topic Ukraine.
Some very erudite and well explicated commentary here, thats become scarce sadly elsewhere.
Appreciate the manners and moderation to exclude the casual sh1tposting thats mucked up other blogs over the years.
I’ll be back, as its quite interesting- along with you imbuing the flavor of the literary and kind reminders to us all, to get along and see the big picture of “Something Wonderful” that Gerard posted at his place.
Thanks Turtler, Om, Brian and ithers for the well informed and generally respectful interchange here on Ukraine.
Learned much and need to refect and crosscheck but will be back.
Nice work by Mr Green bringing this up frim a laymans perspective at PJM.
So glad to onow there is a wider readership sharing insight and adult conversation, flowering in multiple places.